Journal of Family Violence
Volume 31, Issue 6, 2016, Pages 697-710

Prevalence of Violence against Immigrant Women: A Systematic Review of the Literature (Article)

Gonçalves M.* , Matos M.
  • a School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
  • b School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

Abstract

Interest in studying the particular case of the victimization of immigrant women has increased. This systematic review intends to document the violence that is experienced by immigrant women within their host country and its prevalence. Research was conducted using five databases: PsycArticles, Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect. We selected 24 quantitative studies, according to the following inclusion criteria: published between 2003 and 2013, that focused on an adult study population, and that revealed the prevalence of victimization that is experienced by immigrant women. These studies were mainly conducted in America (67 %) and Europe (33 %), and the participants were mostly Asian and Latin women. The large majority of the studies focused their attention on intimate partner violence, whose prevalence ranges between 17 % and 70.5 %. There is a high variability of the prevalence rates, which could be due to cultural factors and/or to methodological issues. These matters should be addressed by future researchers to allow for a better understanding of the phenomena. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Author Keywords

immigrants Women violence Prevalence IPV

Index Keywords

ScienceDirect Web of Science female immigrant Scopus scientist adult attention cultural factor Medline prevalence systematic review Europe quantitative study human partner violence

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84977090437&doi=10.1007%2fs10896-016-9820-4&partnerID=40&md5=78bf54d11762cd46cf5ee50de05f5a9d

DOI: 10.1007/s10896-016-9820-4
ISSN: 08857482
Cited by: 8
Original Language: English