Caught in the Crossroad: An Intersectional Examination of African American Women Intimate Partner Violence Survivors' Help Seeking.

OBJECTIVES: African American women are disproportionately impacted by intimate partner violence (IPV)-related homicide. They reflect the second highest prevalence rates and experience the highest rates of murder resulting from IPV victimization. Although most survivors note that they have experienced rejection and anticipatory stigma as barriers to their help seeking, African American women additionally experience racism and racial discrimination as obstacles that may further preclude their help seeking. This systematic review highlights African American women's experiences of rejection from providers and the effects that it may have upon their ability to secure urgent aid. METHOD: A dearth of literature examines the subtle ways that African American women survivors experience rejection resulting from the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender oppression. Fundamental to developing more culturally salient interventions is more fully understanding their help-seeking experiences. A systematic review was conducted to provide a critical examination of the literature to understand the intersections of IPV and help-seeking behavior among African American women. A total of 85 empirical studies were identified and 21 were included in the systematic review. The review illuminates both the formal and semiformal help-seeking pathways. RESULTS: We recommend integrating anti-Blackness racist praxis, incorporating African American women's ways of knowing and centralizing their needs in an effort to improve the health and well-being of this population. CONCLUSIONS: Eliminating barriers to more immediately accessing the domestic violence service provision system is key to enhance social work practice, policy, and research with African American female survivors of IPV.

Internalized HIV Stigma and Mindfulness: Associations With PTSD Symptom Severity in Trauma-Exposed Adults With HIV/AIDS.

Rates of both traumatic event exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; 22%-54%) are disproportionately elevated among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA). Trauma and related psychopathology significantly affect quality of life and disease management in this patient population. The current study examined associations between internalized HIV stigma, mindfulness skills, and the severity of PTSD symptoms in trauma-exposed PLHA. Participants included 137 PLHA (14.6% female; Mage = 48.94, SD = 8.89) who reported experiencing on average, five (SD = 2.67) traumatic events; 34% met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Results indicate that after controlling for sex, age, education, and number of traumatic events, internalized HIV stigma was positively related to overall PTSD symptom severity (ß = .16, p < .05) and severity of re-experiencing (ß = .19, p < .05) and hyper-arousal (ß = .16, p = .05), but not avoidance, PTSD symptom clusters. Among the mindfulness facets measured, acting with awareness was uniquely negatively related to the overall severity of PTSD symptoms (ß = -.25, p < .01) and the severity of re-experiencing (ß = -.25, p < .05), avoidance (ß = -.25, p < .05), and hyper-arousal (ß = -.29, p < .01) PTSD symptom clusters. These effects were observed after accounting for covariates and shared variance with other mindfulness facets. Theoretically, the present findings suggest that internalized HIV stigma may serve as a vulnerability factor for the severity of certain PTSD symptoms, whereas acting with awareness may function as a protective or resiliency factor for the severity of PTSD symptoms. Implications for the treatment of trauma-exposed PLHA are discussed.