• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.55
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• pp.255-281
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• 2003

This study sought to explore factors affecting the adjustment of children living in shelters for battered women. Specifically, the impact of domestic violence on children's internal and external adjustment was examined using data from two samples: children who were exposed to marital violence and those who did not have violent experience. Likewise, this study identified the variables that distinguished the "resilient" children from the maladjusted group. The pathways by which protective factors considerably affected children's adjustment were also investigated. A total of 72 children in a women's shelter and their mothers and 76 children in nonviolent homes and their mothers were considered. ANOVA, logistic regression models, and path analysis were employed to process the data. Results revealed that children of battered women demonstrated a high frequency of aggressive and delinquent behaviors and had poor academic achievement and depressive mood compared to children coming from nonviolent homes. Likewise, children who were exposed to marital violence and were physically abused themselves were more likely show aggressive or delinquent behaviors compared to those who only witnessed marital violence. In addition, social support was found to be a protective factor in academic achievement. Predictors of delinquent behavior included the mother's education and income as well as the children's age and social support. Factors related to children's self-esteem included the social support and the mother's self-esteem. Moreover, woman battering has a direct effect on children's adjustment as well as indirect effect through children's academic achievement and self-esteem. Finally, woman battering indirectly affected children's academic achievement through the mother's depression or the child's social support. Based on these findings, practical implications of enhancing children's adjustment were discussed.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.106-124
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• 1996

This paper reviews battering, sexual violence and divorce experienced among women. There three problems have negative influence on health status in women and are further developed to social problems such as family dissolution. The victims of the problems may manifest physical injury, emotional difficulties and social withdrawl, while their children may show problems caused by lack of parental caring and by resembling abusive behaviors of their parents. Hence, nurses need to pay attention to batting, sexual violence, and divorce and to develop relevant nursing interventions for them. Some strategies of dealing with those problems are presented in the following. First, we have to eliminate sexism prevailing in out society. Our society is assigning inequal and asymmetrical gender role. Mass media should inspire equality between genders and show a healthy model of family and community. Second, social system and laws should be changed through collective efforts. Those living conditions of women cannot be changed by the effort of women themselves only. We all need to work for establishing and changing the law, so that those women in suffering can obtain immediate and adequate protection. Third, social support system of consulting and referring women's problems should be established. Such support system as hot line, shelter and counseling clinics would help women in crisis. Fourth, job training and arrangement should be available to women who are divorced. Fifth, there should be self-help group for those women in suffering. Self-help group would help those women in sharing their problems and feelings and in establishing coping strategies. Nurses, as the largest group among health professionals, are sensitive and respond to health needs of clients and have an effect on managing women's health. However, we nurses have not been ready for dealing with problems of women, although most of us are women. we not need to change our perspective of women's health problems from a traditional medical perspective to feministic one. Accordingly, nurses need to develop realistic way of caring those women in suffering and to assist them in making decisions for their lives by themselves.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.141-168
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• 2006

The present study explored and compared the risk factors of two subtypes of maritally violent men with those of a nonviolent comparison group. One type of batterers consisted of a community sample, and the other was sought from the criminal justice system. The identities of the male community batterers were not exposed to the society since their victims did not contact any of the social service agents related to domestic violence. To identify the different characteristics associated with two subtypes of woman abusers, a total of 152 nonviolent men, 82 male community batterers, and 336 offenders in a criminal justice system were considered. The results of the descriptive analysis showed that the level of physical violence of the community batterers was two times lower than that of the batterers who received legal punishments. The results of the multinominal logistic regression were as follows: (1) The variables that distinguished the male community batterers from the nonviolent men were the use of physical violence towards children, marital decision power, and income. (2) Four factors had been found to distinguish batterers in the criminal justice system from nonbatterers, namely: attitudes towards woman battering, education, violence towards children, and level of jealousy. (3) The community batterers showed a higher level of education and of stress as well as a longer period of marital relationship compared to the batterers in the criminal justice system. On the other hand, the batterers who received legal punishments had more severe alcohol problems and had an accepting attitude towards the use of violence. This study also investigated psychopathology among batterers using MCMI-III, based on 333 subjects. In terms of the mean scores, there were no subscales associated with personality pathology in all the male groups. Based on the logit model, the community batterers showed a stronger tendency towards having a passive-aggressive personality than did their counterparts, and they recorded a higher level of narcissism compared to the court-referred battering men. Post-traumatic stress was the only symptom that distinguished the batterers who received legal punishments from the other groups. The theoretical and practical implications of these results were pointed out and discussed in the paper.