Survivors' Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence and Service Utilization during COVID-19

Background and Purpose: The stay-at-home orders that began March 2020 in the U.S. have forced many survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) to remain confined with their abusive partners for extended periods of time. Research has demonstrated that IPV increased in response to the stay-at-home orders. As a result, many areas across the U.S. saw an increase in police IPV calls, IPV hotline calls, and survivors seeking orders of protection. However, the experiences engaging in service utilization remains unknown. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to understand survivors’ experiences of IPV and service utilization.

Methods: Through semi-structured interviews, participants were asked “To what extent has COVID-19 affected your experience of domestic violence?” The data were collected in March 2020. The researchers adopted an exploratory, descriptive, and qualitative approach to inquiry due to the novelty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were recruited from two IPV service agencies in a single state in the southwestern United States. The participants in the study were 10 female survivors of IPV. Their ages ranged from 19-44 years old. Half of the participants identified as White and the other half identified themselves as Black (n=3), Latinx (n=1), or multiracial (n=1). A convenience sample was used with the staff distributing the study promotional material. The researchers utilized thematic analysis to understand the survivors’ experiences using a combination of inductive and deductive coding methods.

Results: The findings of this study are presented based on two categories that arose from the data. The first category related to experiences with service providers. The second category refers to the impact of COVID-19 on their daily lives. The themes: 1) isolation and 2) escalation, emerged from the data. The theme of escalation had two subthemes that were coded deductively using Davies (2017) survivor risk analysis framework 1) escalating life-generated risks and 2) escalating partner-generated risks. Survivors recognized that agencies are facing unique challenges as they seek to adapt to social distancing and other COVID-19 precautions. Identified life-generated risks related to COVID-19 included enhanced mental health concerns, difficulty completing goals while in shelter, and unemployment. Several participants reported partner-generated risks related to COVID-19 including enhanced COVID-19 related stress leading to greater severity and frequency of violence. Survivors’ experiences with agency rules varied, with some recognizing the limitations agencies were facing related to stay-at-home orders, and others drawing connections between the restrictions that they experienced within the service context and previous experiences of isolation or coercive control at the hands of their abusive partners.

Conclusion and Implications: Articulating the reasoning behind shelter policies and procedures could enhance survivor outcomes and empowerment. Ongoing investigations similar to this study, with larger and more diverse sample sizes are needed. Understanding the lived-experiences of survivors experiencing IPV during the COVID-19 pandemic could inform service providers about how to best support survivors living in shelters, as well as engage in safety planning with survivors in the community during the current and future public health emergencies.