Recovering Safety: A Pilot Study of a Women’s Empowerment Group for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence with Substance Use Disorders

ABSTRACT

This pilot study examined the feasibility and satisfaction of the Recovering Safety group, an outpatient empowerment, psychoeducational skills group for women with substance use disorders who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Patient satisfaction, empowerment, and safety were assessed at three time points. Participants (N = 8) reported high satisfaction with the group and rated the IPV-informed content, women-only participants, and female therapist as important factors; empowerment increased from pre- to post-group. These results support initial feasibility; further study of such treatments is needed to examine efficacy of this group intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• intimate partner violence
• gender-based violence
• substance use disorder
• women
• domestic violence
• group therapy
• substance use

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr Carole Warshaw and Dr Denise Hien for their expert review on revisions of the Recovering Safety manual.

Portions of this manuscript were presented in poster format at the 2022 American Academy of Addictions Conference and subsequently mentioned in the 2022 American Journal on Addictions as “A Stage Ia Behavioral Treatment Development Trial of ‘Recovering Safety: A Women’s Empowerment Group for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence with Substance Use Disorders’.”

Disclosure statement

All authors approved the manuscript and this submission. The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Sarles Young Investigator Award for Research on Women and Addiction (AES) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse K23DA050780 (DES) and the NIDA Clinical Trials Network New England Consortium Node UG1 DA018531 (SFG).