title: Defining appropriate stages of change for intimate partner violence survivors.
abstract: Recent research suggests that the transtheoretical model of behavior change is a promising approach for interventions addressing women's experiences of intimate partner violence. This study explores the distribution of abused women across the stages of change for (a) staying safe from intimate partner violence and (b) leaving an abusive relationship. It explores the relationship between stage assignment and other indicators of a woman's stage (i.e., safety behaviors and desire for services). Quantitative surveys were conducted with 96 low-income, urban abused women recruited from six health care clinics. The findings call into question the appropriateness of using a staging algorithm that uses one "global" question about keeping safe and suggest that staging questions focused on a single action stage (e.g., leaving) are also problematic. In conclusion, additional work remains to be done to develop and validate quantitative measures of stages of change for survivors of intimate partner violence and to design, implement, and evaluated stage-based, tailored intimate partner violence interventions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. jgburke@pitt.edu
authors.forename: Jessica Griffin
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Burke
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mahoney
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gielen
authors.forename: Karen A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: McDonnell
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: O'Campo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D018585:Battered Women / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008019:Life Style; D008875:Middle Aged; D010414:Pennsylvania; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*