Description

Intimate partner violence (IPV) disproportionately affects immigrant women. However, immigrant women remain an understudied and underserved population in need for evidence-based rigorously evaluated culturally competent interventions that address the health and safety needs of immigrant women. This study uses a sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) design to rigorously evaluate an adaptive culturally informed intervention tailored to needs of immigrant women with IPV experiences. For the first stage randomization, participants will be randomly assigned to an online intervention or the usual care control arm and safety, mental health and empowerment outcomes will be assessed at 3, 6 and 12 months follow up. For the second stage randomization, women who do not report significant improvement in safety (i.e., reduction in IPV) and in empowerment from baseline to follow up points (i.e., non-responders) will be re- randomized to the augmented intervention components (text only or a combination of text and phone) developed in the formative phase. Data on outcomes (safety and empowerment) will be assessed at 6 and 12 months of re- randomization. By re-randomizing participants, the study will assess the relative effectiveness of two strategies for augmentation (text only or a combination of text and phone) on safety and empowerment outcomes among the non-responders of the online intervention. In addition, the study will compare the non-responder group of women to the responder group of the online intervention to determine if the strategies of augmentation brought the non-responders to the level of responders on safety and empowerment. Finally, the study will identify facilitators and barriers to the adoption, implementation and maintenance of use of the original and augmented intervention by programs serving immigrant women and design strategies to decrease barriers and build on strengths.