Citation

Tsirigotis K, Łuczak J. Psychiatr. Q. 2018; 89(3): 521-532.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Piotrków Trybunalski Branch, Słowackiego 114/118 str., 97-300, Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11126-017-9560-5

PMID

29292477

Abstract

Lives of people experiencing domestic or/and intimate partner violence abound in many unpleasant events and physical and psychological suffering, which affects their psychosocial functioning. The aim of this study was to explore indirect self-destructiveness as a generalised behavioural tendency and its manifestations in women experiencing domestic violence. The "Chronic Self-Destructiveness Scale" (CS-DS) was used to study two groups of women: 52 women aged 30-65 years (mean age: 40.15) using assistance of the Crisis Intervention Centre due to experienced domestic violence (V group) and 150 well-matched women not experiencing domestic violence (NV group). Women suffering domestic violence (V) obtained significantly higher scores than women not experiencing domestic violence (NV) for both the general index and a majority of CS-DS subscales; it was only for the A1 (Transgression and Risk) subscale that they achieved somewhat lower scores. Correlation coefficients between particular CS-DS subscales in the V group were higher than in the NV group; there were also certain differences in coefficients between the groups. Subscale factor analysis results were different too: only one factor was isolated in the V group while two were distinguished in the NV group. It can be inferred from the results that the intensity of indirect self-destructiveness as a generalised behavioural tendency as well as of most its categories was higher in women experiencing domestic violence. Tendencies and categories of indirectly self-destructive behaviours in women suffering domestic violence were more closely connected with one another, and the internal coherence of indirect self-destructiveness in those women might also be higher.

Language: en

Keywords

Domestic violence; Indirect self-destructiveness; Women