A scoping review using the COM-B model to explore the literature on barriers and facilitators of help-seeking behavior amongst women affected by domestic and family violence in Australia

Abstract

Domestic and family violence is an urgent problem in Australia, with high prevalence rates amongst women and wide-reaching consequences for both individuals and society. While several governmental interventions have been set up to support victims, barriers to help-seeking exist. Moreover, different population groups of women are affected by domestic and family violence in different ways, and different service providers have different rates of women accessing support services. At the same time, limited research is available that analyses how barriers and facilitators to help-seeking differ between different population groups of women and service provider groups. This research therefore provides an overview of the literature about what is known about the barriers and facilitators that different population groups of women experience in engaging in help-seeking behavior at different service providers, to provide a solid starting ground for future research. The COM-B model was used to organize the factors found in literature in a systematic way, and to identify research gaps in the existing literature. A scoping review was conducted, for which the databases Scopus and PsycINFO were searched for English peer-reviewed literature published between 2011 and 2024. After having generated a total number of 344 studies, 15 studies were selected and analysed that met the inclusion criteria. Results showed that most studies have focused on certain population groups of women only and on formal services that were not further specified. The different COM-B factors have also not been equally studied across population and service provider groups. In addition, none of the included studies focused on physical capability-related factors, and psychological capability and automatic motivation-related factors were only researched to a limited extent. More research is therefore needed that focuses on diverse population groups of women, specific service providers, and that studies the different COM-B factors equally across groups.