Background
International research has shown the significance and impact of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) as a public health issue in young adults [
1]. Prevalence rates for IPVA in young adults vary considerably depending on the populations sampled, definitions used and the forms of IPVA included [
2], although rates are considered high, with reported prevalence of up to 97% for emotional and psychological violence [
3]. A range of demographic, mental health, and behavioural factors are associated with increased prevalence of IPVA victimisation or perpetration [
4]. Evidence has consistently shown that young people with a history of familial domestic violence or child abuse are at greater risk of IPVA [
2,
5,
6]. Other research has highlighted a range of wider factors associated with the risk of IPVA including: bullying, social norms, gendered attitudes and beliefs, mental health problems and drug use [
7,
8]. Feelings of loneliness and isolation are one of the consistent consequences reported by women in abusive intimate relationship and children who have been sexually abused [
9]. Importantly, not all young people who experience familial violence go on to experience IPVA [
10,
11]. Protective factors which have received the strongest empirical support and demonstrated significant additive and/or buffering effects in longitudinal studies are self-regulation, family support, school support, and peer support [
12].
There is a broad consensus for the need to identify the complex pathways to IPVA across different countries and populations, which consider socio-ecological factors to inform primary prevention and interventions [
1,
2,
8]. To do this we need to better understand the pathways to violence and abuse through adopting an ecological perspective. Ecological perspectives emphasise the complexity and bi-directional influence of the interactions that young people experience at four levels: the individual, family and relationships, community, and wider societal context and note that these interactions can protect or increase vulnerability to IPVA [
1]
.
However, most research in this area still focuses on investigating the links at personal and family levels, whilst recognising more work is needed to understand how the broader community and societal levels can contribute to either sustaining or preventing domestic violence [
13]. Hamby [
14] summarises that research which identifies the importance of community level factors remains largely absent from the literature on violence and adversity. In contrast to most current prevention approaches that focus on risks or how to avoid risk/violence, a strengths-based approach to addressing violence, including IPVA, is posited as the most promising way to direct prevention and intervention efforts [
15]. Strengths-based frameworks challenge us to think about what individuals, groups or communities are striving for or moving towards in their lives, and the assets or protective factors that help them achieve this.
The complexity of pathways leading to IPVA suggest that qualitative research is necessary to support a more nuanced understanding of young adults’ experiences and perceptions of these pathways and what helps them overcome trauma and disadvantage. However, most research in this area is quantitative (e.g [
16,
17].) with only a small number of qualitative studies exploring participants own understanding and perception around pathways to intergenerational IPVA [
18,
19] and none specific to UK populations. A mixed-methods approach synthesising findings would strengthen and expand our knowledge of these pathways.
The ability to support young adults also depends on being able to identify those in need. Disclosure of maltreatment has been suggested as an ongoing process unfolding over time, where positive and negative feedback loops are possible depending upon the response received by the young person disclosing [
20]. Consequences can be both positive and negative, impacting on the young person's subsequent help seeking attempts [
21,
22].
Much of the focus in the literature has been on disclosure of childhood sexual abuse, although many studies have reported that sexual abuse often occurs alongside other forms of abuse, for example neglect [
23,
24]. There is also a need to consider disparities in disclosing between different groups of children and young adults and types of abuse, including multi-victimisation where multiple forms of abuse have been experienced [
25]. Finkelhor (2007 [
26]) considered that weaknesses in previous studies on child victimisation focussed on the contribution of single victimisation experiences to mental health problems and often failed to identify chronically—or poly-victimised—children and how this can affect them in more traumatic and less reversible ways [
27]. Poly-victimisation is a strong predictor of trauma symptoms in children [
26], worse psychological impairment in adolescence [
28], along with other multiple and adverse consequences [
5,
29]. The designation and analysis of poly-victims can aid in assessing the cumulative impact of, and better understanding of victimisation trauma [
30‐
32].
Some research has specifically investigated the intersection of child maltreatment and IPV, which often co-occurs and is underscored by community violence and social and structural factors that add more stress and trauma to lives [
33]. It is posited that the response to this should be large-scale public health strategies emphasising primary prevention and focussing on strength-based approaches to build resiliency [
33].
As with the strengths-based approach, focussing on what helps, not hinders, children and young people from disclosing maltreatment would also be beneficial [
34].
The current Young Adults Relationships and Health Study (The YARAH study—
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/primaryhealthcare/researchthemes/yarah-study/link) addresses the gaps in qualitative empirical evidence by exploring the understandings and perspectives of a sample of young women who had experienced IPVA (more than half who had been multi-victimised) about the pathways to IPVA and highlights factors that helped participants’ resilience. It also builds on, and extends the evidence of, the dynamic, dialogic process of disclosure and help-seeking in young people who have experienced domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and maltreatment in their family of origin. By viewing the data within an ecological framework, we also highlight the importance of responses at all levels and interactions for the young person seeking help. To triangulate the findings from our qualitative interviews, we used quantitative data from a longitudinal cohort study to explore a key pathway identified in thematic analysis of our interview data: from early childhood trauma to IPVA, through loneliness.
Ecological Definition |
Individual level: characteristics of child, including inherited genetic and biological factors, age, disability or health, characteristics of child’s parents Relationship: child’s or young person’s interactions with others in the context of close relationships (family, friends, peers and intimate partners) Community: settings and institutions in which child’s relationships and interactions take place (neighbourhood, schools, residential units, workplaces and criminal justice agencies), Societal: laws, cultural and belief systems, social inequalities and political issues, such as gender inequality, social exclusion and poverty |
We used the definition of ‘domestic abuse’ as defined in the UK Domestic Abuse Act (Legislation.gov.uk 2021) whereby behaviour is “abusive” if it consists of any of the following: physical or sexual abuse; violent or threatening behaviour; controlling or coercive behaviour; economic abuse; psychological, emotional or other abuse; and it does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct. IPVA is also domestic abuse and consists of the same behaviours but refers specifically to abuse that occurs within an intimate relationship only, and not the wider family.
Discussion
In interviews with young women, how individuals and institutions responded to young peoples’ help-seeking around maltreatment and wider forms of disadvantage was essential to the well-being and consequent behaviour of respondents.
Being silenced acted as a social determinant not only of mental and physical health and wellbeing but operates to further isolate young people leading to intense loneliness, increasing the risk of further victimisation/maltreatment for children and young people.
Most interview participants had been silenced in a combination of ways; through by not being listened to, by being negatively labelled and due to poor or misaligned professional services that did not address, or in some cases denied, the experiences of the young people involved.
Silencing happened at all ecological levels from family and peers to community and institutions including schools, police, health and other professional services. The experience of not being heard was compounded by structural factors: the class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, disability and neurodiversity of young people often played a part in how people at the individual, interaction level responded to participants. This was not necessarily conscious; systemic, cultural biases at the societal level can be a powerful disincentive to disclosing abuse.
As a result, participants reported lifelong feelings of loneliness and/or of being an outsider. This acted as a primary mechanism in a negative feedback loop/pathway: feeling or being ‘othered’ can increase vulnerability to more maltreatment leading to increased ‘othering’ and loneliness, leading to increased vulnerability to more maltreatment.
Quantitative analyses in the ALSPAC cohort, exploring this pathway from early childhood maltreatment and trauma to IPVA through loneliness, showed that loneliness mediates an important minority of the pathway between early years victimisation and IPVA. Among interviewee accounts, this effect was stronger for those who had been multi-victimised, and was compounded by compounded by disadvantage, ethnicity and disability.
A number of studies have found that the reactions of professionals to young people disclosing maltreatment were perceived as unhelpful; such as not being believed, or no action being taken [
56,
57]. Our findings on silence support those of Mackenzie’s [
58] where they a ‘
operate to undermine an entitlement to be heard and to obscure the ways in which abuse (past or present) acts as a social determinant of mental and physical health.’ [2019: Pg 4].
Where the current findings add to the theories of help-seeking, is by highlighting the social process of labelling as part of the silencing mechanism that ‘others’ the participants who are already vulnerable due to negative family experiences and maltreatment of all kinds.
Participants’ accounts have a lot in common with labelling and stigmatising described in education by Thomas (1997). Labels help create and organize the options available to students. Once constructed as a victim, stigmatised with negative labels, and rejected by peers, studies show it is almost impossible for students to change and improve their situation [
59]. Even when external victimisation ends, an internalised version can continue and cause psychosocial problems for many years affecting the victims’ relationship with others.
However, these micro interactions do not operate in a vacuum; biases that are present at the societal and structural level are enacted by family, peers, teachers, health, police and other professionals at the relationship and community level. Again, they may not be explicit biases—but they are biases nonetheless and are risks that can lead to further isolation and vulnerability to maltreatment such as peer abuse and IPVA.
Whilst feelings of loneliness and isolation are one of the consistent consequences reported by women in abusive intimate relationship and children who have been sexually abused [
9], the role of loneliness in increasing vulnerability to further maltreatment and IPVA has not been fully described before. One other small study of three young women’s perceptions of IPVA touched briefly on their vulnerability to IPV being partly to do with feeling disconnected [
60] a related, if not analogous, emotion. A quantitative study [
51] made the case for loneliness as a mediator between childhood abuse, shame and health. The current study addresses, in part, the authors’ concern that much is still unknown about the role of other people's responses in the development of shame and loneliness in those who were not sufficiently protected in childhood. Our findings show how silencing and labelling by family and community of childhood maltreament and trauma causes loneliness and increasing vulnerability to IPVA.
Whilst we recognise that this is not the sole responsibility of schools and teachers, they do nevertheless play an important role in children and young adults’ lives as evidenced in how participants spoke about their experiences. How teachers responded to signs and signals of distress was often a potential turning point for vulnerable, lonely children and adolescents.
Whilst not being heard acted as a barrier to support, examples of good support involved being believed and fully seen and listened to by one trusted family member or friends and/or a professional adult or service, which could be the first step in getting help [
21,
25].
Being given prompt and appropriate help can aid young people in understanding their situation and begin ‘recovery’; addressing the underlying causes of mental health symptoms and acting out behaviour with the correct treatment.
Many participants had been multi-victimised and had negative experiences when trying to seek help that had left them lonely and vulnerable. As reported in other studies, ‘dual exposure’, living with parental domestic violence as well as other forms of child maltreatment, increases the odds that a young person will experience intimate partner violence [
5].
However, and it is a large ‘however’, whilst there were disadvantaged participants who had experienced multiple adversity they kept going—sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable barriers. They wrestled control back of their lives by fighting for their education whether a GCSE, an NVQ or a degree. They had plans for the future, for their children (if they had them), for their career, for making a difference.
Having the opportunity to achieve in education was essential to feelings of self-worth and future expectations and prospects. This was particularly true for disadvantaged participants where achievements gave them choice and consequent financial freedom and, therefore, the possibility of breaking the pattern of intergenerational transmission of violence and abuse.
Having experiences validated and being supported, whether by a family member, peer or member of a community, profession or institution, ameliorated the impact of the maltreatment/loneliness loop.
Listening to young womens’ life experiences prior to IPVA helps us to better understand what helped them at a relational and community level (and not just what hindered). The strengths-based approach to violence prevention makes clear that what helps young adults may not seem to be directly to do with violence or health [
15]. A wider, ‘cross-cutting’ approach is needed, rather than professions and disciplines working in isolation, in directing prevention and intervention and building strength in any community. The current findings build on this approach by indicating what different individuals and groups want to achieve and what would help them to achieve this. In this case by highlighting the strength of education; making it easier for those who are most vulnerable to stay in school or college and support them towards their goals. It is important that abuse is addressed in these extra-familial domains to help those affected. Resilience is not an individual trait but the work of everyone around the young person; their family, teachers, services/community and structures [
61].
It is important to clarify that the unjust way the participants were treated due to their socioeconomic group, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, disability or neurodiversity at relationship and community levels were directly linked to the laws, systems and inequalities at the societal level. The participants who were most disadvantaged had continued to be so, their situation intensified by social exclusion and poverty.
Overall, there were fewer accounts of positive factors compared to previous work, possibly as an artefact of recruiting people through frontline services who were more likely to have been multi-victimised. There was some evidence that participants from more advantaged backgrounds had more access to resources to deal with their maltreatment e.g. private counselling, greater social networks and social capital. Nevertheless, for lower and higher socio-economic participants, the ways in and out of the loneliness loop were similar, at all ecological levels.
Strengths and limitations
The sensitive nature of the research ensured that recruiting could only take place through organisations or via groups where participants could access support after their interview if necessary. This resulted in participants who were more likely to have been ‘multi-victimised’ than a more general population sample and nearly all participants had some experience of some form of counselling.
The original aim of the study was to recruit and interview young male and female adults. Despite best efforts, we did not manage to engage support organisations specifically for men to help us recruit, although one young man was recruited and interviewed through a frontline organisation. Consequently, our findings can only describe the data from the perspectives of the young women.
Nevertheless, the intention was to sample as wide a range of young adults as possible and recruitment included those from: advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds; a range of ethnic minority backgrounds and sexualities, with and without higher education or employment, children or no children, with or without disabilities and atypical or neurodiverse. A strength of the study was in reaching data saturation in this varied sample in the themes presented, adding to the validity of the findings. The use of LHCs also directly addressed problems of recall bias by evoking memories ‘underneath’ the usual narratives given.
When considering the different strengths of the qualitative and quantitative findings, it is likely that the stronger outcome for loneliness in the interview data was associated with the majority of participants having a more economically disadvantaged and multi-victimised background than that of the ALSPAC cohort. The different findings may also be explained in part by the different framing of ‘loneliness’: ALSPAC participants were asked at specific timepoints and in surveys about feeling lonely; qualitative participants were not asked about feeling lonely – they spoke about it spontaneously throughout their interviews in the context of their life history. Further research investigating loneliness as a mechanism or risk for IPVA within and between different socially determined groups would build on this finding.
Implications
Only relatively recently has there been a sustained UK public health focus on IPVA in young peoples’ relationships [
44,
62,
63]. IPVA is a complex and multifaceted issue and young people require differential levels of support depending on the risks they encounter. There is a need to recognise how wider structural inequalities intersect with IPVA perpetration, necessitating the need for population-based prevention programmes [
1].
Our findings show that participants tried to get help for maltreatment prior to IPVA in their childhood and adolescence, they have agency; but it is essential that young adults – especially those most at risk of isolation and loneliness and therefore more vulnerable—are listened to and believed. Good practice needs to focus on early-intervention, service-user led prevention strategies.
Pre-existing vulnerabilities need to be addressed by services and initial support should be needs-led. It is important to consider the cross-cultural aspects of children and young adults’ experience and provide services that are multidimensional and respond to different cultures and experiences. For example, how distress or loneliness manifests will vary between and within all cultural groups. It is important to consider both the complexity of experiences and cumulative effects of adversity.
For young people, the school environment and relationship education is key. However, the importance of interventions outside of school in community groups and settings, or in clinical contexts should also be considered for a fully informed approach at all levels of young adult interactions. There are many access points of intervention for young people experiencing maltreatment which may help break the inter-generational cycle of violence and victimisation.
Care needs to be taken to ensure society and institutions address inequities in responses to children and adolescents reporting maltreatment. The current findings support research into the importance of active listening and being believed (in children and adolescents), not just in disclosure of victimisation and multi-victimisation itself, but in breaking the transmission of intergenerational transmission of violence and victimisation.