J Community Psychol
January 2025
Women experiencing homelessness constitute a group with idiosyncratic characteristics and needs that have largely remained invisible. Their discriminatory situation has been studied very little which may limit the design of specific intervention strategies. Buenos Aires (Argentina) is one of the main megalopolises in Latin America, where information on women experiencing homelessness is scarcely available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of the study was to analyze the differences in suffering stressful life events (SLE) among women experiencing homelessness who had or had not been in prostitution. Data were collected from a sample of 135 women experiencing homelessness in Madrid. A total of 81% of the women interviewed had never been in prostitution, while 19% had been in prostitution at some point in their lives.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPersons experiencing homelessness represent one of the principal manifestations of the phenomenon of social exclusion, with homeless women constituting a group in a particularly vulnerable situation. The article analyzed the experience of violence in childhood and adolescence, and its implications in terms of violence experienced as an adult, in a sample of women experiencing homelessness in Madrid (Spain) ( = 138). All participants were of legal age and had spent the night before the interview in a shelter or other facility for the homeless, on the street, in public spaces or in places not suitable for sleeping.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFViolence Against Women
December 2024
In this longitudinal study, we aim to evaluate the prevalence and impact of interpersonal and non-interpersonal traumatic events among women experiencing homelessness in Madrid (Spain) ( = 136). The information was collected through a structured interview and standardized instruments at baseline and at a 12-month follow-up. The most prevalent events were physical assaults, intimate partner violence, and severe illnesses or accidents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
February 2023
The main aims of this article are to update the data related to drug and alcohol use in persons experiencing homelessness (PEH) who use shelters, and to see if there are significant differences in their drug use depending on their gender and nationality. The article presents an analysis of the interconnections between the results of drug dependence detection tools (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Drug Abuse Screening Test (DAST-10), Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS)) according to gender and nationality with the intention of identifying specific needs that lead to new lines of research into better approaches to homelessness. A cross-sectional, observational and analytical method was used to analyse the experiences of persons experiencing homelessness who use various shelters in the cities of Madrid, Girona, and Guadalajara (Spain).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeople living homeless are quite heterogeneous groups, including different subgroups with specific characteristics that vary substantially. Within this group, women living homeless are an understudied subgroup with specific necessities which in most cases have not been addressed in general studies related to the group. The present study examines determining factors that influence the levels of overall happiness and outlook for the future of women living homeless.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNicaragua is one of the lowest income countries in Latin America, where there is a shortage of data on women living homeless. This paper analyses the types, timing and perceived causality of stressful life events (SLE) suffered both during childhood and adolescence and throughout life by women living homeless (n = 30). A structured interview was used to collect the data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe paper analyses the health situation and the perceived health status of a sample of women experiencing homelessness (n = 138) in Madrid, Spain. All participants were adults, and the night before the baseline interview, they had slept on the street, at a shelter or any facility provided to care for people living homeless. The information was collected using structured interviews, repeated twice a year for a 3-year follow-up period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: People living homeless represent one of the most extreme embodiments of the phenomena of poverty and social exclusion, and women are a particularly vulnerable group among people living homeless.
Methods: Various factors in a sample of women living homeless in Madrid, Spain (n = 136) have been analyzed for relationships to connections to the employment and labor market. Information was collected using a structured interview.
Women constitute a particularly vulnerable subgroup of people living homeless, with their own set of circumstances and life histories that are different from men in the same situation. In this paper, we present the results of a longitudinal study on the situation, needs, characteristics, and process of change among women in a homeless situation in Madrid (Spain). This study involved 136 homeless women who were spending the night at shelters, drop-in centers, on the street, or in public spaces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Community Psychol
January 2022
Nicaragua is one of the countries with the lowest levels of development in Latin America, with a collectivist culture, where information on people in a homeless situation is very limited. The study examines a sample of people living homeless in the city of León (Nicaragua), their level of overall happiness, their future expectations, their perception of the evolution of their situation, their causal attributions of homelessness, and the aspects they believe are most important for overcoming their situation. Forty-one of the 68 homeless people contacted in León (Nicaragua) responded to a structured interview.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Orthopsychiatry
November 2021
The objectives of this study were: (a) to assess the prevalence of disability among homeless women; (b) to compare homeless women with and without a disability in key variables (e.g., sociodemographic, homelessness history, physical and mental health, etc.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this paper is to discover the extent to which women living homeless in Madrid (Spain) have been victims of intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV), analysing the connection between stressful life events (SLE) relating to violent victimisation and having suffered sexual assault by a partner. This study took place using a sample of women living homeless in Madrid (n = 136). The results obtained show that a high percentage of the women living homeless who were questioned had been victims of IPSV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study is to examine stressful life events (SLEs) among homeless women and how SLEs were related to patterns and trajectories of homelessness. Specifically, the study aimed to replicate and build upon by Muñoz et al. (2005) by using cluster and discriminant analysis in a sample of 116 homeless women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNicaragua is one of the countries in Latin America with lowest levels of development. In Nicaragua, people in a homeless situation are one of the most socially excluded groups, and there is a lack of data regarding their characteristics, circumstances, and needs. This study examines the state of health, disability, and substance use among people living homeless (n = 68) in the city of León (Nicaragua).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHomeless people are one of the most obvious embodiments of the phenomenon of social exclusion, and homeless immigrants and homeless women are considered 2 particularly vulnerable groups. The objective of this article is to analyze the differences between women living homeless born in Spain (nonimmigrants) and those born abroad (immigrants). The study was carried out based on the data obtained from a sample of women living homeless in Madrid (Spain; = 136).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe researchers' aim for the current study is to analyze the impact of gender-based violence on mental health and happiness. The sample is composed of 136 women victims of intimate partner violence, who were living in poverty. The participants contacted through the country's Commissariat for Women and Children and other associations working with the National Police from Nicaragua, a country with low levels of development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArch Womens Ment Health
October 2020
Several studies have revealed that homeless people suffering from mental health problems are more vulnerable than homeless without those mental health problems. Nevertheless, there is a lack of evidence describing the real circumstances of homeless women. This paper explores the differences between homeless women at high risk of mental ill-health compared with those who do not present this risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper examines the content and degree of uniformity of meta-stereotypes among women living homeless in Madrid, Spain, and the differences with their male counterparts. The study was conducted utilizing a structured interview with a representative sample of men living homeless (n = 158) and a convenience sample of a similar size (n = 138) of women living homeless. The results show that the meta-stereotypes of women living homeless in Madrid are characterized by mainly negative (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objectives of this study were: (1) to assess the prevalence of substance use among homeless women; (2) to examine the correlates for drug abuse; (3) to analyze paths between early stressful life events, drug abuse and mental health. The methodology was a longitudinal study of women homeless in Madrid (Spain), who were followed for a 24 months period. There were 138 participants interviewed at baseline and 73 participants interviewed at follow-up.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeople in homeless situation are one of the major embodiments of the phenomenon of social exclusion, and women living homeless are considered a particularly vulnerable group. This paper examines different variables that may affect the situation of vulnerability experienced by women living homeless in Madrid (Spain). The study was carried out using data obtained from a representative sample of homeless men in Madrid (n = 158) and a sample of homeless women in Madrid of a similar size (n = 138).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntimate partner violence (IPV) has serious consequences for women, and their vulnerability is increased if their experiences related to abuse occurred at an early age. This study examines the risk of experiencing stressful life events (SLE) during the lives of Nicaraguan victims of IPV in situations of extreme poverty according to their exposure to episodes of violence in their family of origin. In the study participated 136 women victims of IPV living in the marginal areas of the city of León (Nicaragua).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNicaragua is one of Latin America's least developed countries and has a lack of data on homeless people, a stigmatized group living in extreme poverty. We conducted structured interviews with homeless people living in the city of León (Nicaragua; n = 41) to obtain data on the quantity, types, timing, and perceived causality of stressful life events (SLEs) experienced during their childhood and adolescence as well as throughout their adult lives. The findings showed that our participants had experienced a high number of extremely severe SLEs at very early ages and most of these SLEs occurred before they first became homeless.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF