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The complexity of domestic violence against older women in rural areas

Characteristics of the co-occurrence of forms of violence and the relationship between perpetrators and victims

Summary/Abstract: Aim. The study of the phenomenon of domestic violence against senior women, carried out in rural areas of Western Pomerania, was oriented to the characteristics of the structure of the phenomenon (in the form of – well-established in the research tradition and described in the literature – five of its forms: psychological violence, physical violence, neglect, economic violence and sexual violence), as well as the characteristics of the relationship between perpetrators and victims. Methods. The research concept was carried out using an auditory interview technique based on a questionnaire. Results. 35.5% of elderly women experience psychological violence, 22.3% experience neglect by relatives, 8.3% - acts of economic violence, 5.8% physical violence and 0.8% sexual violence. Considering the perpetrators of domestic violence against older women, 60.6% are men, most often the husbands of victims (50%), and sons (25%). Perpetrators of violence are more likely to be the victims’ husbands than their children, who in turn are perpetrators of violence against elders more often than their spouses (i.e., the victims’ sons-in-law/daughters-in-law), concubines or partners. Conclusion. Neglect is more likely than not to co-occur with psychological violence. Two types of acts of psychological violence: humiliation, persistent teasing/mocking/mocking in the eyes of others, and blaming for even minor failures, failures/multiple blames for one’s own mistakes are characterized by a high potential for associating psychological harms with neglect. They remain correlated with almost all, accepted for study, acts of neglect. This correlation of forms of domestic violence can be read as a kind of complex of dysfunctional relationships between family members. The results of the study confirm the thesis that the situation of families is characterized by a peculiar accumulation of conditions having the hallmarks of pathological patterns of family life, expressed in the occurrence of entire complexes of experienced harms, usually belonging to more than one form of violence.

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