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Increasing Financial Empowerment among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Growth Curve Analysis
Author(s) -
Johnson Laura
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1002/ajcp.12491
Subject(s) - empowerment , psychology , financial literacy , psychological intervention , intervention (counseling) , nomological network , domestic violence , health psychology , measurement invariance , finance , poison control , developmental psychology , confirmatory factor analysis , clinical psychology , social psychology , suicide prevention , structural equation modeling , public health , medicine , economics , statistics , psychiatry , nursing , economic growth , mathematics , environmental health
Financial empowerment interventions are often used with survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) to improve their financial well‐being. However, few evaluations actually measure financial empowerment as an outcome. Thus, the purpose of this study was to develop and test a conceptual model for financial empowerment and then use the model to evaluate the effectiveness of a financial literacy intervention at increasing financial empowerment for survivors. The conceptual model was guided by Christens’ nomological network for psychological empowerment and included four components: emotional, cognitive, relational, and behavioral. The analyses used data from a randomized controlled trial evaluating Moving Ahead, a financial literacy program developed for IPV survivors ( n = 449). To determine whether this intervention was effective at increasing financial empowerment for survivors over time, confirmatory factor analyses were run to test for longitudinal measurement invariance, followed by a curve‐of‐factors growth model (CFM) with assignment as a time‐invariant predictor of change. Strict partial longitudinal measurement invariance was achieved and CFM results found assignment to be significantly associated with both initial status (.054, p = .042) and change over time (.114, p = .000). Results suggest that this conceptual model for financial empowerment fit the data well and the intervention was effective.