Resilience, spirituality, distress and tactics for battered women's conflict resolution

OBJECTIVE: Determining the relationship of resilience and spirituality in battered women to distress, the frequency and intensity of mistreatment and the severity of injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A sample was taken of 199 women who consulted Comisarías de Familia de Medellín, Colombia (family police/counselling stations). Resilience scales (RS), spiritual perspective (SPS), SCL-90R and conflict tactics (CTS) were used. Internal consistency, correlation and main exploratory components were measured. RESULTS: The scales revealed internal consistency. Resilience was positively correlated to spirituality (r = 0.22; p = 0.0015) and negatively correlated to total positive distress symptoms (PST) (r = -0.39; p < 0.0001), the global severity index (GSI) (r = -0.30; p = < 0.0001) and 9 dimensions of symptoms from SCL-90R. CONCLUSIONS: The scales used were reliable and valid for measuring the variables being studied. Women with higher levels of resilience reported high levels of spirituality, a lower number of positive distress symptoms and less distress.

Duke Scholars

Author Janice Carrol Humphreys School of Nursing