Neuropsychological Assessment of Battered Women

<p>This study examined the effect of physical battering on the neuropsychological functioning of women. Twenty-five battered women and twenty-five non-battered women were administered a neuropsychological screening battery (11 separate tests, yielding 16 variables) to assess for possible deficits in the areas of attention/concentration, memory, visual-perceptual skills, sensory-motor skills, novel problem solving, and verbal fluency. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire, a post-concussive syndrome checklist, and a questionnaire evaluating for the presence of depressed mood and possible effects of depression. Potential participants with a history of previous head injury (occurring from a source other than battering) or other neurological disorders were excluded from the study. Groups were matched for age, level of education, and ethnicity.</p> <p>A Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was employed to test overall group differences considering all 16 neuropsychological variables collectively. The resulting analysis revealed significant group differences F(7,50) = 7.30, p<.0001 (Wilks Lambda =.21). There was a significant difference between groups with regard to depressed mood, t(45) = 4:07, p<.0001, with battered women obtaining higher scores on a depressed mood questionnaire. Therefore, a Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was performed on the 16 neuropsychological dependent variables, controlling for the effect of depressed mood. There was a significant difference between groups on 12 of the 16 variables. When applying clinical criteria, battered women exhibited impairment on a larger number of test than controls, F(1,49) = 72.14, p<.0001. No significant correlation was found between the number of test on which battered women participants were impaired and the number of years in which the relationship was physically abusive, r = -.16. Similarly, the correlation between the number of battering episodes within the past month and number of measures on which a bettered women was impaired was not significant, r =.07. Battered women endorsed a greater number of symptoms on a postconcussive syndrome checklist than did control participants, t(48) = 4.48, p<.0001.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

1996

Author dc:creator

• Tiernan, Mona Matheney

Contributors dc:contributor

• Michael Stutts
• Frederick Freeman
• Robin Lewis
• Barbara Cubic
• Lynn Warner

• Domestic violence
• Women victims
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Women's Studies

Statement dc:rights

• <p>In Copyright. URI: <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a> This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).</p>

Identifier

9780591048728

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.odu.edu:psychology_etds-1222