Citation

Sorsa M, Bryngeirsdottir HS, Paavilainen E. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023; 20(7).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph20075389

PMID

37048003

PMCID

PMC10094109

Abstract

After suffering interpersonal violence (IPV), women survivors can access various interdisciplinary services and programmes to guide their recovery. Nevertheless, many vulnerable women postpone seeking help, sometimes indefinitely. Motherhood especially complicates help-seeking because mothers often want to protect both the perpetrator and their children. Understanding women's resilience, resources, and capacities in surviving IPV, however, could guide the development of helpful services that women actually access. Thus, in our study, we sought to explore the agency, resources, and reinforcing survival experiences of survivors of IPV. Our data, gathered in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic, consisted of 12 narratives of mothers told in Clinical Ethnographic Narrative Interviews that were subsequently subjected to thematic analysis. Five themes describing personal resources, motherhood, and nature were identified under the overarching metaphor of "going forward like a grandmother in the snow". Recognising the agency, resources, capacities, and coping mechanisms of women who have suffered IPV can help in developing professional outreach programmes, promoting women's early access to useful resources, and, in turn, helping them to stop the possible intergenerational transmission of violence.

Language: en

Keywords

Child; Humans; Female; trauma; qualitative research; Snow; help-seeking; Pandemics; Mothers; *COVID-19/epidemiology; *Intimate Partner Violence; intimate partner violence (IPV); gender-based violence (GBV); maternal health; women’s health; *Grandparents; nature; survival strategies; trauma recovery