Evidence on interventions that create or enhance informal support for victim-survivors of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) is concentrated in the Global North, and unevenly distributed across types of intervention, population and outcome.
The Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) in Brief
The relatively small evidence base includes diverse interventions from around the world, but research is concentrated on interventions tailored towards victim-survivors’ ability to create or foster informal support, primarily in the Global North. Studies focus on female, adult, victim-survivors with a particular emphasis on their mental health and wellbeing, and help-seeking.
What Is This EGM About?
People who experience violent and abusive relationships often rely on their friends, relatives, neighbours or work colleagues for help and support. Recognised as ‘informal supporters’, such groups play a critical role, but they often do not know what to do, feel helpless or fear getting involved. Seeking to address some of these barriers, non-governmental organisations, communities and workplaces are beginning to develop programmes and activities to foster or strengthen support from friends, neighbours, colleagues and community leaders.
This EGM identifies studies about such interventions to better understand these programmes and build a picture of the research knowledge we have about them. This EGM helps decision-makers to understand the extent and type of informal support interventions delivered around the world, enable them to assess existing approaches and so inform commissioning of further activities.
What Is The Aim of This EGM?
This EGM identifies and describes all the available evidence on interventions that aim to create or enhance informal support for people experiencing abusive relationships. In doing so, this EGM aims to provide data that can contribute to the development of policy and interventions that strengthen societal responses to violence and abuse.
What Studies Are Included?
The EGM includes any research providing qualitative and/or quantitative data on informal social support (ISS) interventions, published in English. Eligible studies need to report data for informal supporters or victim-survivors of DVA (adults who were/had been experiencing abuse in an intimate relationship).
Studies are categorised according to whether the intervention was targeted towards informal supporters, the victim-survivor, the relationship between them and/or the wider community. Any type of intervention is included so long as it has an explicit aim to enhance or promote informal support. Any form of informal support is eligible so long as it is provided by friends, colleagues, neighbours or community members, current non-abusive partners or any family member. Studies can come from any region of the world and report any outcome.
The EGM includes 47 studies: 17 qualitative studies, 12 mixed method approaches (integrating qualitative and quantitative methods) 11 randomised controlled trials, 7 nonrandomised experimental designs and 5 descriptive quantitative studies.
What Are the Main Findings of This Gap Map?
The evidence base is small, relative to the larger number of informal support interventions being delivered around the world, and most of the research comes from North America, with a handful of studies also conducted in Europe, Asia and Africa.
The studies are unevenly distributed across intervention types, with clusters of evidence concentrated around interventions directed towards victim-survivors of abuse, such as support groups or mentoring, and interventions targeting informal supporters, such as education and training. The EGM found little research focused on interventions directed towards social relationships or communities.
Most studies report data on adult female victim-survivors, with a particular emphasis on their mental health and wellbeing, and help-seeking behaviours. Such outcomes align with wider service user/provider priorities and highlight the imperative of DVA research to improve the lives of victim-survivors. However, there are gaps in the data about specific groups of victim-survivors, including those who have left the abusive relationship in the longer term, ethnic minorities and men. There is also limited data on informal supporters per se and particularly for friends and family members. The EGM also highlights a gap in research on community-level outcomes.
What Do the Findings of the Map Mean?
To our knowledge, this EGM is the first to provide a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the current research on interventions that seek to create or enhance informal support for victim-survivors of domestic abuse. This presents an initial step towards understanding these interventions, assessing their viability and effectiveness. The EGM therefore provides information for policymakers and practitioners seeking to prioritise and enhance informal support as part of a societal-wide response to domestic abuse.
The evidence base can be strengthened with additional studies examining interventions that focus on relationships and communities and assessing a wider range of population groups.
How Up-to-Date Is This EGM?
The EGM includes academic research that was published up until the end of October 2022, and wider reports up until July 2023.