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The purpose of this paper is to identify the factor structure of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) among abused Iranian women.

This paper is a methodological study. The participants included 554 abused married women who were selected by convenience sampling from the women presenting to health centers and hospitals and their companions as well as women visiting mosques and parks in Shahroud, Iran. The exploratory factor analysis was used to investigate the factor structure of the WCQ. The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient.

Following the exploratory factor analysis, 36 items and 5 factors were extracted, which could explain 73.24% of the variance in the concept of coping with intimate partner violence. The extracted factors included distancing, planning, wishful thinking, seeking social support and problem-solving. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire as a whole was 0.91.

This paper has practice and research implications for promoting coping among abused women. The factor structure of the WCQ obtained in this paper can validly measure coping with intimate partner violence among abused Iranian women. Learning about the coping strategies used by abused women can help design context-based interventions to assist these women in better coping with their husband’s violence and improving their well-being. This version of WCQ also enables assessing the effectiveness of the designed interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify barriers to seeking help among abused Iranian women.

This qualitative research was carried out using content analysis approach. The participants were 24 married women who were selected from health care centers, recreational centers, and two universities in Tehran, Iran. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data.

During data analysis, four themes emerged that explained barriers to seeking help in the participants: “fear of negative consequences of help-seeking,” “lack of resources,” “beliefs and attitudes,” and “indirect experiences of not being supported.”

This study has practice and policy implications for promoting help-seeking among abused women. Based on the results, to promote help-seeking, intervention plans must focus on empowering women to improve their education and employment, eliminating attitudes and beliefs hindering help-seeking, and fortifying formal and informal support systems for abused women.