The Breaking Point: Financial Strain As a Key Mechanism Linking Economic Abuse and Psychological Distress Among IPV Survivors

Background and Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a profound social injustice that was severely exacerbated by the economic downturn of the COVID-19 pandemic. While economic abuse is recognized as a pervasive tactic of control, limited research has examined the precise mechanism through which these tactics translate into adverse mental health outcomes. Guided by Stress Process Theory and the Resilience Portfolio Model, this study examined whether perceived financial strain, the material pressure of meeting basic needs, mediates the relationship between economic abuse and psychological distress. We hypothesized that the psychological damage of control is fully mediated by the acute material pressure of financial insecurity, identifying a critical "breaking point" for survivor wellbeing.

Methods: This study utilized the national cross-sectional sample consisted of 576 woman-identifying survivors (N = 576) who were recruited through Qualtrics Research Panel Services in July 2022. Participants were screened for IPV using the E-HITS and Scale of Economic Abuse-2 (SEA-2). Validated measures included the 14-item Scale of Economic Abuse-2 (α =.97), the 8-item Financial Strain Survey (α =.90), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 mental health screen (α =.895). To test the mediation effect without a macro-based approach, a hierarchical linear path analysis was executed in SPSS 30.0.0. We controlled for participant age, race/ethnicity, and the frequency of physical abuse to ensure the model isolated the unique impact of economic coercion.

Results: Descriptive results confirmed the severity of the "dual pandemic": 62.0% of survivors reported increased financial stress since March 2020 and 29.5% experienced hunger. In the first block of the path analysis (Total Effect), economic abuse significantly predicted mental distress (β =.265, p <.001). In the second block (Path a), economic abuse was a powerful predictor of increased financial strain (β =.448, p <.001). Crucially, in the final model, perceived financial strain was significantly associated with distress (β =.488, p <.001), while the direct effect of economic abuse became non-significant (β =.045, p =.335). This indicates full mediation, proving that the material consequences of abuse are the primary drivers of psychological impairment in this sample.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings provide a rigorous empirical critique of the clinical siloing of domestic violence services. The results demonstrating that democratic safety and personal agency are compromised when economic systems allow for survivor entrapment through scarcity. Implications for social work include the mandatory integration of "Economic Advocacy", prioritizing credit repair and account-shielding, with trauma-informed care. Policy efforts must move beyond individual counseling to prioritize direct, low-barrier cash transfers to eliminate the primary mediator of psychological distress and restore survivor agency (OR = 4.72 for food security risk).