Political violence and health among Palestinian women: The protective effects of internal and external coping strategies

Political violence compromises both the physical and mental health of civilians, increasing risks for PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and physical symptoms like pain and weakness. Nonetheless, scholarship increasingly highlights how people effectively mobilize internal and external resources to cope with political violence. More research is needed, however, on coping within political violence among adults, particularly women. The study population was adult Palestinian women from the West Bank (N= 122). Two hypotheses were examined: (1) exposure to political violence correlates with poorer physical and mental health; (2) internal and external coping resources (proactive coping; self-reliance; reliance on religious, political and family support; political/civic engagement) moderates the effects of political violence, to weaken its effects on physical and mental health (PTSD, distress, and the general health perception and mental health sub-domains of the SF-12). Lifetime and past-30 day measures of political violence were positively correlated with PTSD symptoms (r=.289, p=.006; r=.329, p=.001). Reliance on religious support moderated the effects of past-30 day exposure to political violence on general health perception and mental health in a protective direction (B= 93.071, β = .245, p=.026 and B= 71.737, β = .240, p=.029). Those with high rates of internalized coping (reliance on self, proactive problem solving) demonstrated worse health as political violence increased. Findings demonstrate that the problem of political violence calls for an increased understanding of how various coping strategies might operate among distinct populations. The implications of these results for both domestic and international public health social work practice will be discussed.