Intimate partner violence and the leaving process: Interviews with abused women

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global health problem. Previous studies show the complexity of a violent relationship and provide different explanations for the reasons why the woman do not leave. Recently the focus has also been on to women who in fact leave their violent relationships. There is a call for more research on the leaving process to identify key factors potentially amenable for intervention. With aid of constructivist grounded theory, within a Swedish context and through qualitative in-depth interviews, the aim was to increase the understanding of abused women's experience of leaving heterosexual violent relationships. The findings show that Fear is a central theme and phenomenon in the Process of leaving a violent relationship. Fear is described in many different ways and the analysis shows that these feelings function as both restraining and releasing factors. Three key categories, Restraining break up, Balancing between staying and leaving and Releasing turning point, were found and these could be related to the core category, Fearfulness as a driving force to leave.