Publication Details
Dedeigbo, O., & Cocodia, E. (2016). Domestic violence in Australia's cald communities: Association between demographics of frontline workers and selected therapeutic approaches. 3rd Asia Pacific Conference on Advanced Research.
Abstract
Similar to the global scenario, domestic violence (DV) is a public health problem even in Australia. Although the mental health effects of domestic violence are well established, there is a dearth of literature about the demographic characteristics of frontline workers and their preference of therapeutic approaches in engaging with victims of domestic violence from Australia’s Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities. Data was collected about the demographics and preference for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Person Centred Therapy (PCT) therapeutic approaches from a sample of N=60 frontline workers associated with medical organisations in New South Wales (Australia). A MANOVA was used to test for an association between the demographic characteristics of the frontline workers and preference for CBT or PCT based therapeutic approaches. The results of the multivariate tests did not find the main effects of any of the demographic factors to be significantly associated with a preference for CBT and PCT based therapeutic approaches. However, follow-up tests indicated that the PCT Perception Score was significantly different by gender and years of experience of the respondent. The findings from the study can be used by policy makers and other researchers to formulate domestic violence educational packages for frontline workers customized according to their gender, years of experience and preference for certain therapeutic approaches.
Keywords
domestic violence, frontline workers, CALD community, therapeutic approaches