A Comparison of the Wellness Levels of Victims of Domestic Violence with a Local Female Population

• Main Author: Harvey, Tara Zeruie
• Format: Others
• Published: Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange 2010
• Subjects: domestic violence; wellness; Five Factor Wellness; Maslow; Adler; Counseling Psychology; Educational Psychology; Other Education
• Online Access: http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/884

This research project is an investigation into the wellness levels of victims of domestic violence. Wellness was measured using the Five Factor Wellness Assessment by Meyers and Sweeney (2005). The research is grounded in a theoretical trifecta comprised of the works of Alfred Adler, Hiram Maslow and the global concept of wellness as defined by Jane Meyers and Thomas Sweeney. An exploratory factor analysis was run on the Five Factor Wellness Assessment to assess the goodness of fit for the population being studied. Wellness levels were assessed upon intake into a domestic violence shelter and compared with the national normative wellness scores using a series of one way two-tailed T-tests. Additionally, the national normative wellness scores were compared with the wellness scores of a local population using the same analysis method. The wellness scores of the victims of domestic violence were compared with the local population using a MANOVA. Statistical significance levels were established at .003 using a Bonferroni adjustment to accommodate the number of variables that comprise the assessment. Results indicated that there are statistically significant differences between the victims of domestic violence and the national normative population in a negative direction. There are also statistically significant differences between the scores of the local population and the national normative population in a positive direction. Finally, the wellness scores of the victims of domestic violence when compared with the local population are also statistically significantly different with the victims scores being much lower than the scores of the local population. These findings create a wealth of information for practitioners and researchers in the domestic violence field and a plethora of new avenues for research.