Self-Compassion, Health, and Empowerment: A Randomized Controlled Trial for Chinese Immigrant Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

About This Grant

ABSTRACT Intimate partner violence (IPV) poses significant social and health challenges, particularly affecting immigrant women who confront increased risk and adverse consequences. Chinese immigrants, the largest Asian ethnic group in the U.S., with over 4 million individuals, have received limited focus in existing IPV research and intervention efforts, despite a high prevalence of IPV reaching nearly 21% within the past year. They face substantial barriers to accessing IPV and mental health services, due to sociocultural factors such as stigma or shame, limited English proficiency, isolation from mainstream American society, unfamiliarity with available resources, and limited availability of linguistically and culturally appropriate services. Moreover, IPV’s substantial and well-documented effects on mental health further exacerbate the challenges faced by this population of women. However, there is a lack of culturally appropriate interventions that address these barriers while improving their acceptability and accessibility to address the mental health needs of abused Chinese immigrant women. To fill this gap, our proposed community-partnered intervention, Self-Compassion, Health, and Empowerment (SHE), adapts a structured safety and empowerment intervention while uniquely incorporating mental health elements, including relaxation and self-compassion meditation, to address abused Chinese immigrant women’s mental health needs. Leveraging mobile health technology, our intervention seeks to overcome barriers such as geographic dispersal, stigma, and privacy concerns that often hinder access to support. Our pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 50 abused Chinese immigrant women has shown the feasibility and acceptability of the mobile-based SHE intervention, which forms the basis for this proposal of a fully powered two-arm RCT. The primary aim of the study is to test the efficacy of the mobile-based SHE intervention in improving mental health among Chinese immigrant women experiencing IPV and co-occurring symptoms of depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We will recruit 364 Chinese immigrant women and randomize them 1:1 to the intervention or attention control group. The 6-week SHE intervention consists of one phone session on IPV safety and empowerment and five weekly relaxation/self-compassion sessions via text. The attention control group will receive 6 weekly nutrition and health sessions, matched in delivery mode, timing, and contact frequency. We will compare the two groups for primary outcomes of depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms and the secondary outcome of IPV from baseline to 6-week, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month follow-ups. Our findings will provide evidence for the application of the mobile-based SHE intervention to support the mental health needs of abused Chinese immigrant women. Our approach is innovative, and there is a high potential for scaling up the intervention to improve access to IPV and mental health support among Chinese immigrant women experiencing IPV.