An empirical test of a self-care model of women's responses to battering

A model of women's responses to battering was constructed based on Orem's t heory of self-care deficit and on empirical and clinical observations. The model proposed that The age, educational level, and cultural influences as basic conditioning factors would all be directly related to relational conf lict, which would be negatively related to self-care agency (as a mediator) and indirectly related to both outcomes of health and well-being. Using si multaneous structural equation modeling with specification searching, a mod ified model was derived that eliminated the mediation path but supported di rect effects of both abuse and self-care agency on health. The derived mode l was found to be only a borderline fit with the data, probably due to meas urement problems,lack of inclusion of important variables, and small sample size (N = 117). However there was support for several of the relationships deduced from and/or congruent with Orem's theory.