Abstract
Among women and men who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), what proportion had contact with informal or formal sources of help, and how helpful were these sources considered? Does the type of violence experienced influence the likelihood of help-seeking? One thousand, four hundred sixty-four ever-partnered women, 1,423 ever-partnered men. This study used a population-based and representative sample of New Zealand women and men who experienced IPV to present descriptive statistics of those who sought help from informal (e.g., family and friends) or formal (e.g., police, healthcare providers) sources. Comparisons were undertaken to determine whether respondent characteristics or types of violence experienced were associated with the likelihood of seeking help. The perceived effectiveness of the help, and reasons for seeking/not seeking help were explored. For women, 28.4% told no one about the IPV, 33.3% told informal sources, 30.6% told both formal and informal sources, and 7.7% told only formal sources. For men, 53.5% told no one, 26.1% told only informal sources, 13.5% told both formal and informal sources, and 6.9% told only formal sources. There were notable gaps between seeking help and the perceived helpfulness of both informal and formal sources; gender-specific information on helpfulness is presented. Of those who did seek help, most reported motivating reasons associated with serious concerns or experience of violence. For both women and men, the type of IPV experienced was significantly associated with seeking both formal and informal help. Enabling and resourcing informal helpers could have important implications for supporting and encouraging contact with formal helping services, which could support opportunities for long-term recovery from violence. Additional work to energize and enable formal services across multiple sectors is needed to fulfill policy ambitions of providing safe, accessible, and integrated responses, and providing increased capacity for healing for those who experience violence.
Keywords
Introduction
Those who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are commonly adjured to “seek help” or “reach out” for assistance with violent relationships, with the assumption that services are readily available, accessible, appropriate, and equipped to provide effective help. While women who experience violence are known to use a wide variety of strategies to try and keep themselves and their children safe (Goodkind et al., 2004; Hamby, 2013), research has demonstrated that help-seeking is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of factors (Barrett et al., 2020; Wright et al., 2021).
Individual, family characteristics, cultural nuances, or social positioning of a person within the family and the wider society may significantly influence help-seeking behaviors. For example, financial status may influence the type of help sought, as women with higher incomes may be less likely to use shelters (Cattaneo & Deloveh, 2008). Ethnicity, culture, and religion may also influence likelihood of seeking help from services, as well as the type of help that is sought (Hulley et al., 2023; Satyen et al., 2019). These socio-cultural differences may be associated with perceived likelihood of receiving help; for example, those in marginalized social categories may be less likely to seek help as they expect that this will not be forthcoming, or fear a punitive response for themselves or someone else (Barrett & Pierre, 2011). Previous New Zealand studies have also identified a broad range of factors that can influence help-seeking (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010; Lelaurain et al., 2017), including physical and mental health, work-related impacts of IPV, and types of IPV experienced (Malihi et al., 2021). These factors interact with the types of help that are available and influence whether people seek help from informal sources, such as family and friends, or contact formal helping services such as shelters, police, or courts (Lelaurain et al., 2017).
The presence of children may also influence help-seeking, with some research indicating that women are more likely to seek help for their IPV they experience if children are present, and to seek safety for their children (Meyer, 2010). In contrast, other research suggests that having children may inhibit some women from seeking help for their experience of violence, with beliefs about the importance of “keeping the family together” (Heron et al., 2022; Herrero-Arias et al., 2021), or fear or threat of losing custody of children if she seeks help (Rhodes et al., 2010) being salient factors.
To date, the majority of studies have investigated help-seeking behaviors among women who have experienced physical and/or sexual IPV (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010; Sabina et al., 2012; Tengku Hassan et al., 2015). These studies generally report that family and friends are the main source of help that women go to, with more than half of women seeking help from these “informal” sources (Goodkind et al., 2003; Sylaska & Edwards, 2014). Some studies report that the frequency and severity of physical abuse experienced are associated with disclosure of IPV (Domenech del Rio & Sirvent Garcia del Valle, 2016; Ergöçmen et al., 2013), while other studies did not find this association (Kim & Lee, 2011). At present, however, little is known about help-seeking behaviors by women who have experienced psychological and economic abuse, or who have experienced controlling behaviors. Exploration of how experience of these lesser studied IPV types is associated with help-seeking is important as psychological abuse is more common than experience of physical and/or sexual violence (Mellar, Gulliver, et al., 2023; Mellar, Hashemi, et al., 2023; White et al., 2024). Furthermore, other studies indicate that economic abuse compounds the effect of IPV experiences, increasing women’s likelihood of poor mental health outcomes and financial insecurity (Mellar et al., 2024).
There is also little known about help-seeking by men who have experienced IPV of any type, as relatively few studies have been conducted with men (Scott-Storey et al., 2022). The few recent population-based studies that have been conducted suggest that men who experience more severe IPV have increased likelihood of seeking formal help (Lysova & Dim, 2020), while qualitative work suggests that men are reluctant to seek help for IPV experience and believe that they will not receive help if they ask for it (i.e., their appraisal/expectations of likelihood of receiving help [Bates, 2020; Walker et al., 2020]). There are currently no New Zealand population-based studies that have reported on help-seeking by men who have experienced IPV.
Understanding who people reach out to for help related to IPV can provide important insights into who people regard as important supports. The use of open-ended questions about help-seeking enables participants to provide this information without researcher assumptions about who individuals might find helpful and has the potential to provide information about institutions and services that need to be resourced to respond to the problem (Reja et al., 2003). We also know that people have contact with services for a wide range other needs, such as contact with health services for a range of health needs, and that these contacts have potential to provide proactive support for the issue of IPV (Fanslow & Kelly, 2016; Oram et al., 2022; World Health Organization, 2019). Furthermore, people may have contact with services intended to address the issue of IPV, even when these contacts are not initiated by the person, for example, if neighbors call the Police in response an episode of IPV (Ministry of Justice, 2020). Gaining an understanding of service contacts by those who have experienced IPV may provide additional information on the reach and potential of these services to provide help. To gain an understanding of these service contacts the use of prompted questions has utility as a method of minimizing recall bias (Teschke et al., 2000). To understand if there are differences in people making contact with services for help with IPV, and if this differs from their other contacts with agencies requires the ability to compare an individual’s answers to both of these questions. To our knowledge, this methodological step has not previously been undertaken in the IPV help-seeking literature.
Understanding perceptions about the helpfulness of these contacts can give an indication of the quality of existing responses. Furthermore, understanding what factors encourage or inhibit IPV disclosure and help-seeking can inform design and implementation of new strategies to reach those affected by IPV experience. While previous studies have identified a broad range of factors that can influence help-seeking patterns (e.g., severity of violence experienced, presence of children, the physical and mental health impacts of IPV (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010; Lelaurain et al., 2017; Malihi et al., 2021), the last New Zealand study population-based study to investigate this was conducted in 2003, and there is a need for updated information.
The present study investigates informal and formal help-seeking behaviors in a population-based sample of women and men who had experienced IPV in New Zealand and explores if there are sociodemographic characteristics that seem to influence help-seeking. In addition, we investigate help-seeking by those who experienced physical and/or sexual IPV and whether help-seeking differs between those who experienced psychological, controlling behaviors, or economic abuse (with or without physical and sexual IPV). The study also explores who respondents told about their experience of IPV, and the perceived helpfulness of these contacts, as assessed through responses to an open-ended question, and supplemented by responses to prompted lists of contacted formal services. Finally, respondents’ reasons for seeking or not seeking help are also assessed.
Methods
The 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Study (NZFVS) was conducted between March 2017 and March 2019. The study procedures and study tool were based on the WHO Multi-Country Study on Violence Against Women questionnaire (World Health Organization, 2005), and adapted for use with men and for the New Zealand context (Fanslow, Gulliver, et al., 2021). The 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Study surveyed women and men from three New Zealand regions (Auckland, Waikato, and Northland), which together account for around 40% of the New Zealand population and broadly represent New Zealand’s urban and ethnic distribution.
Sampling and Data Collection Procedures
Methods are published in detail elsewhere (Fanslow, Gulliver, et al., 2021) but are summarized here. A cluster randomization scheme was applied to select eligible adults (aged 16 years and older) who were able to: understand and speak English and understand the study procedure and consent. Furthermore, they needed to: have lived at the household for 4 or more weeks, and stayed at the house at least four nights per week, in order to be able to answer questions related to neighborhood characteristics. Within Primary Sampling Units (PSUs), every second and sixth dwelling was selected from a random starting point. Within each household, only one randomly selected individual from eligible participants in the dwelling could participate. Retirement villages were excluded as the community-dwelling sample generated sufficient participants aged 65 years and older; boarding houses were excluded as the transient nature of this housing means that participants recruited from these locations would be unable to answer questions related to neighborhood characteristics.
Data collection was conducted through private face-to-face interviews, with no one over 2 years old present. Participation was voluntary and no payment was provided. Regardless of violence disclosure, all respondents were provided with referral cards containing service provider contact details to seek support if needed. For safety, women and men were recruited from geographically separate PSUs, to ensure the interview content was not widely known within the surveyed communities. Interviews lasted 45 min on average.
All participants provided written informed consent prior to the start of the interview. Ethics approval was granted by the Human Participants Ethics Committee of the University of Auckland (reference: 2015/018244).
Participants
The New Zealand Family Violence Study (NZFVS) included complete interview data from 1,464 women and 1,423 men, resulting in a response rate of 63.7% of eligible women and 61.3% of eligible men contacted (Supplemental Figure 1). Of 2,887 completed interviews, 2,786 respondents were ever-partnered (ever-married, cohabiting, or currently in a sexual or dating relationship). Of these, 1,474 participants (52.9% of ever-partnered) reported ever experiencing physical, sexual, psychological IPV, controlling behaviors, or economic abuse. Help-seeking outcomes and reliable weighting variables were available for 1,456 participants (733 women and 613 men) and were included in the data analyses. Participants had a mean age of 49.8 years old (SE = 0.42, min = 16, max = 96), and no difference was found between genders for age (t(1,396 df) = −0.79, p = .22).
Variables
Sociodemographic Variables
Participants self-reported their age (collapsed into brackets: 18–29, 30–44, 45–54, 55+), gender (male, female, gender diverse), educational level (primary/secondary, higher), relationship status (married, cohabiting, divorced/separated, widowed), and number of children (none, two or less, more than 2). For ethnicity, participants were able to choose multiple ethnicities. We used Ministry of Health ethnic prioritization to allocate one ethnicity to each participant (Ministry of Health, 2017). We measured area deprivation level using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) index, a neighborhood-level deprivation index that was developed based on seven domains: geographical access, health, education, income, employment, housing, and crime (Exeter et al., 2017). The variable comprised three deprivation levels: low, moderate, and high. A binary independent income variable based on whether or not individuals reported they were working, or had another source of income (e.g., a pension).
Types of IPV Experienced
Participants were asked about their experiences of a range of violent behaviors by any previous or current partner (Table 1). Types of IPV were defined according to participant responses to specific acts that commonly occur in violent relationships, as specified in the WHO Multi-Country Study on Violence Against Women questionnaire (World Health Organization, 2005). IPV experienced was classified into two groups: (a) those who ever experienced physical and/or sexual violence (but not psychological abuse, controlling behaviors, or economic abuse); (b) those who ever experienced psychological abuse, controlling behaviors, and/or economic abuse, whether or not they had also experienced physical or sexual IPV. The majority of respondents in this category also reported experience of physical or sexual abuse.
IPV Variable Questions and Definitions From the 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Survey Used in Analysis.
Help-Seeking Variables
Informal Sources and Formal Sources of Help Sought and Offered (Open-Ended)
Participants who experienced any IPV were asked an open-ended question “Who have you told?/Who did you tell about your partner’s behavior?” 1 followed by the probe “anyone else” until no further responses were elicited. Interviewers coded participant responses into were categories such as such as a family member, friend, neighbor or police, hospital/general practitioner, counselor, or other service organization. Following this, help received (open-ended) was assessed by participant response to the open-ended question “Did anyone try to help you? Who tried to help?” followed by the probe “anyone else” until no further responses were elicited. This information was used to identify the sources that were considered helpful.
Formal Sources of Help Contacted and Satisfaction With Help Received (Prompted List)
Participants were asked “Did you ever go to any of the following for help?” followed by specific prompts for formal helping services (e.g., Police). A prompted (required answer) list was used to ensure all encounters with formal services were captured. The formal services included on the prompted list were selected for inclusion based on their relevance to the New Zealand policy context (see Table 3 for the full list). Satisfaction with help received was assessed by participant response to the question “Were you satisfied with the help given?” To analyze the data, three binary variables were created for (a) those who sought/did not seek any form of help, (b) those who sought help from formal sources (such as police, hospital/General Practitioner, counselor, or other service organization) as reported in either the open-ended or prompted questions or not, (c) those who sought help from informal sources (such as a family member, friend, neighbor) or not.
Reasons for Seeking or Not Seeking Help
Participants who indicated that they had sought help in response to any of the prompted questions about contact with formal helping services were asked “What were the reasons that made you go for help?” Where possible, interviewers coded participant responses into the relevant category using a list of possible options (Table 5). Participants could nominate more than one reason. “Other” responses were coded into existing categories, where possible, during data curation. If the participant indicated they had not contacted a formal service, they were asked “What were the reasons that you did not go to any of these?” with most answers coded into the list by the interviewer (Table 5), and “Other” responses coded into existing categories during data curation.
Statistical Analyses
Analyses included ever-partnered respondents who reported any IPV exposure and who completed the questionnaire section on help-seeking behaviors (n = 733 women, n = 613 men). Survey weighting functions were used to account for sampling methods (clustering by PSU and number of eligible participants per household). Descriptive statistics included frequency, weighted percentages, and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for formal or informal help-seeking and perceived helpfulness and were calculated separately for each gender. Chi-square test statistics (Fisher exact test) were used to compare the prevalence of help-seeking by each sociodemographic group and other independent variables. Reasons for seeking or not seeking help are presented as descriptive statistics with frequency, weighted percentages, and 95% CIs. Missingness issues were minor (less than 1% for all exposure and outcome variables were missing except for economic IPV [13.8% for women and 2.8% for men], where missing was driven by “Not applicable,” “Don’t know,” or “Refused” responses). Missing values were excluded from the analysis. Data analyses were performed in SAS statistical package version 9.5 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA) and Stata version 17 (StataCorp LLC, College Station, TX, USA).
Results
Proportions of Women and Men Who Sought Informal and/or Formal Help
Figure 1 shows the number of women and men who reported seeking help from formal, informal, or both sources for their IPV experience or those who told no one about the IPV, based on open-ended responses. For women, 28.4% told no one about their IPV experience, 33.3% told informal sources only, 30.6% talked to both formal and informal sources, and 7.7% talked only to formal sources of help. For men, 53.5% told no one about their violence experience, 26.1% told only informal sources, 13.5% told both formal and informal sources, and 6.9% told only formal sources.
(a, b) Proportions of women and men who experienced IPV who sought informal or formal help, derived from open-ended questions.
Participants’ Responses to Unprompted (Open-Ended) and Prompted (Close-Ended) Questions, Regarding Contact With Formal Services
A greater proportion of participants reported contact with formal services about their IPV experiences when responding to the prompted list of formal services, compared with their responses to the open-ended question (Table 2). For example, over twice as many women reported contact with women’s refuge, religious/local leaders, and police from the prompted list compared with participant responses to the open-ended question. For men, the differences in proportions reporting contact with formal services between the two question methods were not as large. Additional service contacts were identified in response to the prompted questions, including contacts with (i.e., hospital/healthcare services, social service, legal advice centers, and courts).
Proportions of Women and Men Who Told Formal Services About Their IPV Experience, Comparing Responses to Open-Ended Versus Prompted Responses.
Not specified denotes options that were not reported by participants in open-ended responses.
Sociodemographic and Other Characteristics of Women and Men Who Sought Formal and/or Informal Help, Compared With Those Who Did Not Seek Help
Table 3 shows the characteristics of those who sought formal or informal help and those who did not seek help. Informal help-seeking was more common among younger participants (76.3% of women and 57.6% of men aged 16–29 years old) compared to the older participants (54.5% of women and 34.8% of men aged 55 years and above). Formal help-seeking was more common among women aged 45 to 54 years (48.4%) and men aged 55 years and over (29.9%).
Characteristics of Those Seeking Help From Formal, Informal, or No Sources of Help, Reported by Those Who Experienced Any IPV (Including Physical, Sexual, Psychological, Economic Abuse, and/or Controlling Behaviors).
Note. p Value for chi-square tests for difference within help-seeking categories (sought help vs. no help; no informal help vs. informal help; no formal help vs. formal help). IPV = intimate partner violence.
Not seeking any help (formal or informal).
Derived from prompted list of formal sources, irrespective of informal help-seeking.
Irrespective of formal help-seeking.
Weighted row percentages and 95% confidence limits.
No significant differences were found for help-seeking behaviors based on participant educational status, access to an independent source of income, or ethnicity. For women, a higher proportion who lived in the most deprived neighborhoods sought formal help (37.6%) compared to those who lived in less deprived areas (X2(2, N = 281) = 14.33, p = .05). In terms of relationship status, cohabiting or divorced participants who experienced IPV sought more informal and formal help (p < .01 for all groups, Table 3).
For both men and women, the type of IPV experienced was significantly associated with seeking both formal and informal help. A greater proportion of those who experienced physical or sexual violence reported that they told no one (women 46.2%; men 75.3%). A higher proportion of those who experienced psychological, economic abuse or controlling behaviors (with or without experience of physical or sexual violence), reported formal help-seeking (women 40.7%; men 24.9%; Table 3).
Help Sought From Informal Source Participants and Perceived Helpfulness
Of those who sought help, Figures 2 and 3 show open-ended responses identifying which informal sources women and men reported telling about the IPV they experienced. The figures also show whether the responses provided were helpful. Both women and men most frequently reported telling friends and family: friends were told by 47.2% of women and 32.9% of men, followed by parents (24.2% of women, 12.8% of men). Lower proportions who told a member of their partner’s family or their own siblings. For women, of those who told informal sources about IPV, between half and three-quarters indicated that they received help from this source. The exception was for women who had told their partner’s family about the IPV, where only one-quarter reported that they received help. Among men who told informal sources of help about their IPV experience, over three-quarters reported receiving help.
Proportions of women who spoke about their IPV experience to informal sources of help, and whether they found them helpful.
Proportions of men who spoke about their IPV experience to informal sources of help, and whether they found them helpful.
Help Sought From Formal Sources of Help and Satisfaction With Help Received
Table 4 shows the prevalence of those who, after prompting, reported contact with formal sources of help, and reports participant satisfaction with the help received. For women, 18.0% went to a doctor or GP, 15.2% to police, 17.5% to a mental health service, 11.8% to a legal advice center, and 9.3% to a court. Fewer men with IPV exposure reported contact with these services; 9.8% went to a mental health service, 7.6% to a GP or doctor, 4.6% to each police, 4.4% to a legal advice centre, 3.6% to social services, and 2.8% to court (Table 4).
Proportion of Participants Who Went to Formal Service Providers for Help, and Their Satisfaction With the Service Received.
Note. Responses regarding who they told from both prompted and unprompted questions, satisfaction from the prompted list only. Participants could identify more than one source of help.
There were no significant differences between women and men in reported satisfaction with these formal sources of help. For women, the lowest satisfaction rates were 57.7% of those who went to the hospital or a healthcare service, 68.2% of those who went to a social service, 72.3% of those who went to a mental health service, 72.3% of those who went to the police. . For men, the lowest satisfaction rates were for 47.6% of those who went to the hospital or healthcare services, 63.6% of those who went to court, 64.7% of those who went to the police, and 66.7% of those who went to a community organization.
Reasons for Seeking or Not Seeking Formal Help
Those who experienced IPV were asked their reasons for seeking or not seeking help (Table 5). For women, the main reasons for seeking help were: (a) could not endure more (16.1%), (b) were encouraged by friends/family (7.7%), (c) were afraid of more violence (7.0%), (d) saw children suffering (6.8%), (e) were afraid that their partner would kill them (3.6%), (f) their partner had threatened or tried to kill them (3.2%), or (g) they had been badly injured (3.7%). Men’s reported reasons for seeking help had the same rank ordering as for women, but were reported by smaller absolute proportions: (a) could not endure more (8.1%; approximately half the percentage of women), (b) were encouraged by friends and family (5.5%; lower, but not significantly different from women); (c) had fear of more violence (2.7%), and (d) they saw children suffering (2.6%).
Reasons for Seeking or Not Seeking Help for Intimate Partner Violence, by Gender.
Note. Participants could identify more than one reason.
There were significant gender differences between reports of the following reasons for help-seeking (with women reporting more than men): could not endure more, afraid of more violence, afraid partner would kill them, partner threatened/tried to kill them, badly injured, and saw children suffering.
For both women and men, the main reported reason for not seeking help was “violence normal or not serious” (46.1% of women, 58.8% of men [significantly higher for men]). For women, “being embarrassed, ashamed” (6.8%), was the next most common reason for not seeking help, followed by “did not know my options (3.8%).” For men, 6.9% reported not seeking help due to being embarrassed or ashamed, 3.7% believed it would not help/knew someone who had experienced violence who indicated that reporting had not helped them, 2.2% did not know options, and 2.2% were afraid it would end the relationship. Higher proportions of men compared with women reported that they “didn’t know/didn’t remember” reasons for not seeking help (5.2% men, 4.0% women), and significantly more men refused or did not provide an answer to this question (2.8% men, 0.4% women).
Discussion
The present study investigated informal and formal help-seeking behaviors in a population-based sample of women and men who had experienced IPV in New Zealand and explored if there are sociodemographic characteristics that influence help-seeking. We also investigated help-seeking by those who experienced physical and/or sexual IPV and whether help-seeking differs between those who experienced psychological, controlling behaviors, or economic abuse (with or without physical and sexual IPV). The study also explored who respondents told about their experience of IPV, and the perceived helpfulness of these contacts, as assessed through responses to an open-ended question, and supplemented by responses to prompted lists of contacted formal services. Finally, respondents’ reasons for seeking or not seeking help were assessed.
Overall, almost a third of women and half of men who experienced IPV did not seek help for their experiences. A substantially greater proportion of women and men who experienced IPV reported telling informal sources (i.e., family and friends) about the violence than formal sources. Men sought both informal and formal help for IPV experience at approximately half the rate of women. Of those who did seek help, most reported reasons associated with serious concerns or experience of violence. We found that the use of a close-ended, prompted list of formal help sources captured a greater proportion of participants’ contacts with different agencies compared with responses to open-ended questions. Whether this reflects differences in recall or is an indicator that contacts with formal services were initiated through means other than the participant “telling” is a matter for further investigation. However, the use of this indicator provides a better understanding of participants overall contact with different helping agencies. Of those who did seek help, most reported motivating reasons associated with serious concerns or experience of violence.
A 2003 survey of IPV help-seeking by NZ women reported that 24% told no one about the IPV; the comparative figure from the 2019 study is 28% (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010). This slight difference could be attributed to the inclusion of women over the age of 65 years in the 2019 study, who may have been less likely to speak about their IPV experience (Fanslow & Robinson, 2010). The other results are broadly comparable, with women more likely to seek help from informal sources such as family and friends, although not all were perceived as offering helpful responses. The present study also extends knowledge of contact with formal services by asking participants directly about their contact with specific helping agencies from a prompted list; with this method of prompted query showed higher proportions of women who reported contact with formal services compared to responses generated through free recall. The difference in findings may indicate contacts with services that were not initiated by the person experiencing violence, for example, others calling the police and contacts with services for other reasons such as healthcare.
Women’s reported reasons for seeking help in this study were comparable with those reported by NZ women in the 2003 study. The most common reason, could not endure more, is likely indicative of the breaking point that women reached before seeking assistance. The majority of the remaining reasons for seeking help were a broad constellation of reasons suggesting extreme risk and extreme fear (e.g., badly injured, experienced threat to kill, feared more violence). The primary reason women reported not seeking help was because the violence was considered “normal or not serious.” Furthermore, research has suggested that many IPV victims approach formal services of help once informal help sources are no longer sufficient (Fiolet et al., 2021).
This study contributes to the emerging pool of research that provides information on help-seeking by men exposed to IPV. Consistent with previous research (Ansara & Hindin, 2010; Barrett et al., 2020; Sylaska & Edwards, 2014), fewer men in this study sought formal or informal help than women. This may be explained by the differing reasons women and men sought help (Table 4), as men who experienced IPV were less likely than women to report being badly injured, that their partner threatened or tried to kill them, or that they were afraid of more violence. As for women, men’s reasons for seeking help also included “could not endure more,” but far fewer men reported experience of extreme fear, threat to life, or injury as reasons for seeking help. This may reflect gendered differences in the nature of violence experienced, as women are more likely to experience severe and frequent IPV and violence that results in fear (Fanslow et al., 2022, 2023), and international research indicates that women experience more severe and negative consequences from IPV (Gilbert et al., 2022).
The factors associated with likelihood of seeking help have important policy and practice implications. The preponderance of women who seek help from informal sources like family and friends suggests that more extensive efforts are needed to educate and resource the broader community to provide helpful responses to women who disclose IPV. This is particularly relevant, as other information from this study indicates that helpful and supportive responses from family and friends are also critical features for helping women recover after IPV experience (Pir et al., 2022).
The fact that women of middle age have greater likelihood of utilizing formal help sources may be a function of both awareness of these services, and that those who are older may have greater personal, social, or economic resources that enable them to access help. While accessing necessary help needs to be encouraged for women of any age, the present findings suggest that there is a need to extend awareness of and access to formal help services among younger women. This may require consideration of different messaging formats regarding service availability and exploration of mechanisms for enhancing accessibility. While previous studies have suggested that women from different ethnic groups may differ in their help-seeking (Barrett & Pierre, 2011; Wilson et al., 2021), in this study, no significant differences were identified in help-seeking by women of different ethnicities or by area deprivation level. The increased likelihood of divorced or separated women seeking help for IPV is likely to be an outcome of the IPV experience, rather than indicate a driver of help-seeking behavior.
Overall, fewer women in the present study told someone about their IPV experience compared with a similar sample of NZ women in 2003, and the proportion of women who contacted formal helping services was slightly lower. This is despite considerable policy and programmatic activity in the intervening years (Violence Information Aotearoa [VINE], 2023), including the implementation of the national “Family Violence: It’s not OK” Campaign, which has been active in fluctuating capacities since 2007 (New Zealand Government, 2024). It may be that the effect of these campaigns is time limited, and that public awareness campaigns encouraging those who experience violence to contact services require sustained action and resourcing, as the messaging will be relevant to new individuals within the population as their experience of violence varies over time.
The type of violence experienced may also be relevant, as this study found that women who experienced psychological abuse, controlling behaviors, or economic abuse reported higher likelihood of help-seeking. This is of concern for many reasons, not least that exposure to these types of IPV is common and has increased between 2003 and 2019 (Fanslow, Malihi, et al., 2021). Further public education regarding behaviors that constitute IPV (including non-physical abuse) should be implemented, along with messaging to reinforce that formal services are equipped to provide appropriate help and support for those who have experienced types of abuse that do not involve physical contact. However, this would need to be bolstered by efforts to ensure that helping services have the knowledge, skills, capacity, and capability to live up to these expectations. Evidence from New Zealand Family Violence Death Reviews suggest that many services need further support to achieve the capacity and understanding necessary to address complex and overlapping concerns within families, and may actually have limited tools to address IPV (e.g., services predominantly have the ability to recommend protection orders or legal remedies), without recourse to wider networks of services that can collectively support safety (Herbert & MacKenzie, 2014; New Zealand Family Violence Death Review Committee, 2014, 2022).
For both women and men, the gap between those who sought help from informal or formal sources and those who reported receiving helpful responses remains a concern. The nature of responses from those who receive disclosures about violence experience can have significant long-term consequences and can influence the trajectory of victims’ intentions to access help or leave the relationship (Domenech del Rio & Sirvent Garcia del Valle, 2016; Edwards et al., 2015). To address this gap, both the wider community (which includes family and friends) and formal sources of help need additional guidance and resources that enable them to provide helpful and effective responses to those who disclose IPV experience (Sylaska & Edwards, 2014). International examples of how community resources may be developed and disseminated to encourage supportive responses by family and friends exist, such as the Ontario Neighbours, Friends and Families Program (Publications Ontario, 2024). When people do reach out, available responses should be culturally informed and responsive, as this contributes to effective helping (Wilson et al., 2021).
Limitations
As with all studies, there are limitations with the present investigation. The prevalence of IPV and associated help-seeking may have been underrepresented, as those who were experiencing the most extreme IPV or who were actively engaged with formal helping services (e.g., Police or Refuge) at the time of the survey may have been the least likely to participate. Differences in the reported prevalence of unprompted and prompted formal help-seeking highlights issues with recall biases potentially resulting in underestimation of help-seeking behaviors, especially if participants’ IPV experiences were a long time ago. The survey did not use a prompted list method for informal help sources, which may have underestimated the prevalence of these help-seeking contacts. Further research directly with those who are utilizing formal supports would provide additional important information necessary to strengthen and inform service development and delivery. Future research might also benefit from including measures of the frequency of violent episodes that individuals experienced, or directly estimating the severity of IPV experienced. However, elsewhere we have reported that both women and men who experience greater self-reported physical, mental health or work-related impacts of IPV are more likely to seek help (Malihi et al., 2021); lending confidence to the assertion that people approaching services for help with IPV are likely to experience serious situations that require significant help and support.
Conclusion
This study provides updated knowledge on help-seeking by women exposed to IPV in New Zealand, and new information on help-seeking by men exposed to IPV. Study findings contribute to the field globally, as they are drawn from a population-based sample, rather than those who are already accessing services. In addition, as findings are drawn from a nationally representative sample, it also allows consideration of how age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, may interact with help-seeking for violence exposure. Additionally, the study contributes to the understanding of diversity by providing data from a high-income country other than the United States.
This study provides important population-level information on help-seeking by women and men who have experienced IPV. While there are gender differences in help-seeking, these may be influenced by the gender differences in the frequency, severity, and impacts of IPV experienced. We also explored the influence of under-explored IPV types of psychological IPV, controlling behaviors, and economic abuse on help-seeking. Of those who did seek help, most reported motivating reasons associated with serious concerns or experience of violence. Informal helpers, such as family and friends are most frequently told about the IPV than formal helping services, but informal helpers would benefit from further resourcing to enable them to provide support. Enabling and resourcing informal helpers could have important implications for supporting and encouraging contact with formal helping services, which could support opportunities for long-term recovery from violence. Overall, formal helping services were only contacted by a relatively small proportion of those who experienced IPV and did not universally provide responses that are perceived as helpful. Additional work to energize and enable formal services across multiple sectors is needed if we are to fulfill stated policy ambitions of providing safe, accessible, and integrated responses, and providing increased capacity for healing for those who experience violence (New Zealand Government, 2021).
Supplemental Material
sj-jpg-1-jiv-10.1177_08862605251339646 – Supplemental material for Help-Seeking by Women and Men After Experiencing Any IPV, Including Physical, Sexual, and Psychological IPV, Controlling Behaviors, or Economic Abuse: A Population-Based Study From New Zealand
Supplemental material, sj-jpg-1-jiv-10.1177_08862605251339646 for Help-Seeking by Women and Men After Experiencing Any IPV, Including Physical, Sexual, and Psychological IPV, Controlling Behaviors, or Economic Abuse: A Population-Based Study From New Zealand by Janet L. Fanslow, Brooklyn M. Mellar, Arezoo Zarintaj Malihi, Pauline J. Gulliver and Tracey K. D. McIntosh in Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the participants, interviewers, the study project team led by Patricia Meagher-Lundberg, and data curation by Dr Ladan Hashemi. Representatives from the Ministry of Justice, Accident Compensation Corporation, New Zealand Police, and Ministry of Education, who were part of the Governance Group for Family and Sexual Violence at the inception of the study, are also acknowledged. The study funder had no involvement in the study design; collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data; writing of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. This study is based on the WHO Violence Against Women Instrument as developed for use in the WHO Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence and has been adapted from the version used in Asia and the Pacific by kNOwVAWdata, version 12.03. It adheres to the WHO ethical guidelines for the conduct of violence against women research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Professor Fanslow reported receiving grants from the New Zealand Ministry of Justice outside the submitted work. Dr Gulliver reported being employed at the Health Quality & Safety Commission and being a Relationships and Engagements Manager for the National Mortality Review Function. In addition to her role at The University of Auckland, Professor McIntosh is Chief Science Advisor for the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: Funding was received from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, contract number CONT-42799-HASTR-UOA.
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References
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