Victim help-seeking patterns and how they can inform future support services for victims of intimate partner violence

This research paper examines help-seeking behaviours of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Germany by investigating the point at which victims tend to seek help in an abusive relationship and the types of services they most frequently seek support from. It is then considered how victims’ gender, age and number of children affect the type of support sought, as well as the impact that seeking support from different forms of services has upon the duration of abuse suffered. This paper utilises data collected from a nationally representative online survey conducted in Germany, which included 420 victims of domestic abuse. Initially, the frequency with which victims seek help from different forms of formal and informal support networks is evaluated (henceforth referred to as intervention). Statistical tests are then applied to examine how victims’ backgrounds, help-seeking behaviours, and the length of their abusive relationships influenced their choice of certain interventions. Ultimately, we found that the intervention relied on differed by gender, with women being more likely to seek informal support and male victims confiding more frequently in health practitioners. Victims who sought help from friends and family earlier were more likely to experience shorter abusive relationships. By contrast, victims that sought help from professional services were more likely to report longer relationships. The differences in help-seeking patterns suggest that victims have different needs and/or support networks available to them at different stages in abusive relationships. Challenges in leaving the relationship also reduced the likelihood of victims seeking support, with older victims the least likely to seek support from anyone and the number of victims ‘children increasing the time taken to confide in anyone. These findings indicate the importance of victims’ informal support networks being able to provide a supportive and understanding response when first approached for help by victims. This can be achieved through increasing social awareness of IPV and its consequences. Further qualitative research is required to identify victims’ reasons for reaching out to different services across abusive relationships, to understand the needs that victims need met at different points of the abusive relationship.