Female survivors of intimate partner violence: financial strain, depression, and financial education

This dissertation emphasizes economic consequences of intimate partner violence (IPV) and prioritizes financial education as an effective intervention to enhance mental and financial well-being of female survivors. The dissertation consists of three independent studies to investigate how financial strain interacts with different forms of abuse, depression, and financial education simultaneously. The main focus is financial strain which performs three different roles in each paper based on the Stress Process Model. Financial strain is an outcome variable of IPV in Paper 1; financial strain is a predictor leading to depression in Paper 2, and financial strain is a mediator between financial education and depression in Paper 3. The dissertation provides a comprehensive understanding of interconnections between financial strain with such variables by examining multitudinous stress models using longitudinal data from the randomized controlled trial design of an evaluation research study. The findings of the three papers give evidence to the significant effects of financial strain on female IPV survivors: Paper 1 finds that economic abuse is related to financial strain more than other forms of IPV; Paper 2 demonstrates that financial strain is the mediator between economic abuse and depression, and Paper 3 confirms that financial education decreases financial strain which, in turn, decreases depression. The implications for social work practice, policy, education, and research are discussed.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference