Women Living With a History of Physical and/or Sexual Abuse, Substance Use, and Mental Health Problems

Abstract

Most researchers have studied physical and/or sexual abuse, substance use, and mental health problems separately or as a dual diagnosis, and from a theory-driven, empirical perspective. In this study, the authors examined these three phenomena together and from a phenomenological perspective. Thirty women each participated in an individual interview about living with a history of physical and/or sexual abuse, substance use, and mental health problems. Using a hermeneutic approach, a team of researchers analyzed the transcribed interview texts. They identified three themes: (a) being thrown: the cycle of abuse; (b) living life fearfully: a restricted world; and (c) helping: hearing my story. The results are significant, in that they challenge current assumptions underlying health care for women with histories of physical and/or sexual abuse, substance use, and mental health problems.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 49 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.