Who Seeks Help for Intimate Partner Violence Among Survivors In Korea? Identifying Determinants and Pathways

Background and Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) threatens the safety of women worldwide, as nearly 1 in 3 women report IPV in their lifetime. Many women who experience IPV do not choose to seek help. Thus, it is essential to identify factors affecting help-seeking behavior among IPV survivors, particularly among women whose cultural norms and values may serve as additional facilitators and barriers in the help-seeking process. The Framework Act on the Prevention of Violence against Women was enacted in Korea in 2018, and a review of IPV and IPV help-seeking highlighted that research specific to Korean IPV survivors was critically needed to inform policy and practice. The current study examined factors in relation to help-seeking behaviors, while also conducting a decision tree analysis to further understand the complexities of help-seeking.

Methods: National Korean data was obtained from the Violence Against Women Survey in 2021. The analysis of the data was conducted by using sampling weights to ensure the national representativeness. Organized by the Social-Ecological Model, individual (i.e., age, income, marriage, education, household, employment, violence perception), relational (i.e., IPV and perpetrator types), and community/societal factors (i.e., region, safety perception) were examined in relation to help-seeking, and a decision tree analysis (Classification and Regression Trees algorithm, CRT) was run for a comprehensive understanding of help-seeking behavior among Korean women. For the CRT analysis, the prior probabilities were equalized.The model’s stability was maximized using 10-fold cross-validation, along with a minimum node size of 50,000 for parent nodes and 25,000 for the child nodes.

Results: The regression results revealed that at the individual level, older age (51–65: OR=0.53, p=0.017, 66+: OR=0.41, p=0.002), unmarried (OR=0.62, p=0.019), and employed status (OR=1.46, p=0.016) were significantly associated with help-seeking. At the relationship level, survivors experiencing emotional violence were less likely to seek help (OR=0.59, p=0.049). Additionally, those experiencing violence from both spouse/partner (OR=1.91, p=0.020) were more likely to seek help. The CRT analysis indicated the probability of help-seeking was the highest among the group characterized by physical, financial, or poly-victimization experience, aged 50 or younger, unmarried status, and not living alone which recorded a probability of 64.6%. However, the probability of help-seeking was 0% among the group experiencing controlling, emotional, or sexual violence from either their partner only or both partner/spouse, particularly when combined with a low perception of violence.

Conclusions and Implications: The results demonstrate that individual and relationship factors are associated with help-seeking, while not with community/society factors. While an individual’s perception regarding violence against women was non-significant in the regression analysis, it was significant path in identifying the group with the lowest probability of help-seeking in CRT analysis. Also, violence type was a contributing factor in help-seeking in regression analysis as well as CRT analysis, in which it was found to be the primary criterion. Interventions should move beyond general support to violence-type-specific protocols. Specifically, early identification of vulnerable groups (e.g., older or emotionally abused survivors) and community-wide awareness campaigns are essential to correct normalized perceptions of violence and improve help-seeking rates.