Exploring the relationship between Mental Health and Interpersonal Violence: A comparative study of Adult and Aged Women facing interpersonal violence.

This study attempted to investigate the direction and magnitude of the relationship of mental health with intrapersonal violence in reference to the adult and aged women facing interpersonal violence. More specifically, it has been tried to see the difference between adults and aged women on these variables i.e. mental health and interpersonal violence and to investigate the influence mental health on interpersonal violence among these two strata of women. Total sample N=400 (adult=200+aged =200), was given Mental Health Inventory (Jagdish and Srivastava, 1983) and interpersonal violence scale of Edleson and Minnesota (2007) on domestic violence as well as to perform within a predetermined time correlation, regression and t-test was performed. Results indicated that the overall mental health was negatively and significantly correlated to interpersonal violence in terms of its sub factors among adult and aged women. Adult women were higher on overall mental health and its sub-factors i.e. positive self-evaluation, perception of reality, integration of personality were higher than aged women but the autonomy, group oriented attitudes and environmental mastery were higher of aged women as compared to adult women. Adult women were higher on interpersonal violence as compared to aged women.