It’s not hard to see how being the victim of a stalker can wreak havoc on your mental wellness, but a new study has now proven this to be the case. The study, released online in advance of print publication in an upcoming issue of Social Science Quarterly, has confirmed that women who are the victims of stalkers are up to three times more likely than their peers to experience psychological distress. As a result of their findings, the researchers at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, have urged policy makers not only to guard people’s wellbeing against these criminal offences, but also to provide the victims of stalking better access to support services for help coping with any resulting mental health issues.
In a university news release, Timothy Diette, assistant professor of economics at Washington and Lee, commented, ‘I think the major implication of our findings is that while not everyone takes stalking seriously because in most cases nothing physical happened, the detrimental impact is clear. This study helps raise awareness that in many cases it’s a really scarring event that causes real-life psychological outcomes for victims’ mental health and their ability to function in society.’ As well as the mental health outcomes for victims of stalking, the study also pointed out that nearly 8% of the 8,100 women surveyed had been stalked by the age of 45.
For the study, the researchers compiled information from three major surveys that examined the women’s life experiences. The women’s lives were divided into four different stages based on their age: adolescence (ages 12 to 17); early emerging adulthood (ages 18 to 22); late emerging adulthood (ages 23 to 29); and early middle age (ages 30 to 45). The findings revealed that those in the early emerging adulthood category who were stalked but not sexually assaulted were estimated to have a 113% greater chance of experiencing psychological distress than other women their own age who were not stalked.
While this is a shocking finding, the psychological effects were found to be even more profound for women who were stalked when they were older. Those who were in the emerging adulthood category (23 to 29) when they were first stalked were 265% or nearly three times more likely to have mental health problems. For women aged 30 to 45 there was a 138% greater chance of psychological distress among victims compared with their non-victimised counterparts. The researchers surmised that younger women who are stalked may not be as frightened of this type of behaviour, and so, as a result, it may not significantly affect their emotional health. As the physical strength and sexual urges of their stalkers increase with age, however, women may find their anxiety levels increase. Women who are working or have family responsibilities were also found to be more vulnerable to the psychological consequences of stalking.
Stalking is often seen as less damaging as a physical assault, but the researchers found they actually come close. According to Diette, ‘The large negative effect on the mental health of victims was actually surprising to me. In many cases where you have a gut reaction that of course there should be an effect, you may find that, after controlling for various elements, those effects are actually smaller than you had expected. That is not the case in this study. In the age range 23 to 29, for example, the effects of stalking starts to approach the same level of negative psychological impact on the victim as sexual trauma. My understanding is that stalking is not viewed nearly as seriously by the general public as sexual assault.’
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