Navigating Barriers to Help Seeking: A Thematic Analysis

Background and Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a societal problem that has significant deleterious effects and overwhelmingly affects African American women. Although African American women reflect the second highest prevalence rates, they are more likely murdered by their intimate partner than women of any other racial/ethnic group (Petrosky, et. al, 2017). Despite these dire outcomes resulting from IPV-related homicide, African American women are more likely to remain with their abusive partners until peak lethality rather than seek help from formal service providers (Bent-Goodley, 2013; Petrosky, et. al, 2017). Fundamental to developing effective, culturally salient service provision is understanding how women, whose identities stand in the intersections of race, class and gender, assess and evaluate the viability of and engage with available assistance despite encountering multiple barriers during their IPV help seeking. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand how African American women IPV survivors experience structural barriers, such as discrimination from service providers, while securing urgent aid, and highlight the organizational changes that were implemented as a result.

Methods: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 African American women who have experienced a violent episode within the previous year. Participants were recruited via announcements and flyers. Announcements were made at community and domestic violence agencies, as well as churches and African American Greek-letter sorority alumni chapter meetings. With permission, flyers were posted in hair salons. Interviews were conducted in a private conference room in a building with formal security, where participants could speak freely. Data was collected during one 90-120-minute, face-to-face interview. Interviews were audio recorded. To avoid the risk of coercion, audio recordings commenced upon obtaining participants’ approval. To further ensure confidentiality, a Certificate of Confidentiality (CoC) was obtained from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Results: Based on the 20 interviews, themes were identified across three core dimensions: (1) resources; (2) social influence and control factors; and (3) contextual factors. Participants garnered the strength they needed to persist and secure the supports they needed in spite of encountering racism and discrimination from providers. Although initial encounters with providers often shaped their perception of all actors within the service provision system, survivors were “determined” to secure the help they needed to improve their children’s future. Of particular note, survivors shared the need to increase the number of African American service providers throughout the criminal justice, shelter and healthcare systems, and community agencies.

Conclusions and Implications: In spite of limitations related to generalizability, this study contributes to the limited body of knowledge about African American women’s experiences and subsequent needs during their IPV help seeking. It also has implications to improving services for a marginalized population of underserved women. Specifically, the need for an increased number of service providers. The proximal outcome of the research increased efforts to purposely recruit more African American service providers. The distal outcome of the study was senior leadership collaborating with the PI to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve programming and services for African American IPV survivors.