Mental health outcomes of being a close relative of a serious assault victim

    There is a now sizeable body of evidence that shows how violence can harm health, across different populations (e.g., violence experienced by older people or by people with insecure migration status) and contexts (e.g., violence within the workplace).

    However, much less is known about the effects of violence on the close relatives of victims. This is particularly surprising considering the critical role that relatives play in providing support, care, and advocating for victims in the aftermath of violence.

    VISION researchers, Dr Elizabeth Cook and Professor Sally McManus, address this gap in their recently published, Indirect victims of violence: mental health and the close relatives of serious assault victims in England, an open access article in Social Science & Medicine. They conducted a secondary analysis of the 2014 APMS (a cross-sectional, household mental health survey of 7,519 adults in England). Lizzie and Sally wanted to find out what proportion of the population was closely related to a victim of serious assault, and to assess whether being a relative was associated to poorer mental health outcomes.

    They found that approximately 1 in 20 adults were closely related to a serious assault victim. The analyses showed that relatives were:

    • more likely to be anxious and twice as likely to be fearful in their neighbourhood
    • more likely to be dealing with multiple, other types of adversity such as their own experiences of serious assault and financial strains

    Check out their piece, Families of victims of violent assault have double the risk of anxiety – new study, in The Conversation, where they discuss their findings further as well as the implications for government approaches to counting the costs of the effects of violence for society.

    To read the article or download it free of charge:

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624007329

    To cite:

    Cook, E. and McManus, S. (2024). Indirect victims of violence: mental health and the close relatives of serious assault victims in England. Social Science & Medicine.

    To contact the authors:

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