The environmental stress of intimate partner violence is common and often results in mental health problems of depression, anxiety, and PTSD for women and behavioral dysfunctions for their children. Problem-solving skills can serve to mitigate or accentuate the environmental stress of violence and associated impact on mental health. To better understand the relationship between problem-solving skills and mental health of abused women with children, a cross-sectional predictive analysis of 285 abused women who used justice or shelter services was completed. The women were asked about social problem-solving, and mental health symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD as well as behavioral functioning of their children. Higher negative problem-solving scores were associated with significantly greater odds of having clinically significant levels of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and somatization for the woman and significantly greater odds of her child having borderline or clinically significant levels of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. A predominately negative problem-solving approach was strongly associated with poorer outcomes for both mothers and children in the aftermath of the environmental stress of abuse. Interventions addressing problem-solving ability may be beneficial in increasing abused women’s abilities to navigate the daily stressors of life following abuse. The 300 women and children who allow us to record their pain and recovery take emotional risks each time we meet. As one woman said “I want to talk but it hurts to remember.” We thank each woman who chose to remember and dedicate the findings of this research to her courage and determination 1. Introduction On any given day more than 22,000 children are counted as living in a shelter or transitional housing situation due to domestic violence [1]. This statistic does not include those children who remain in the home and whose mothers have not reached out for assistance. In the United States 15.5 million children are residing in families reporting at least one incident of intimate partner violence in the past year and in seven million cases the violence is severe in nature [2]. Children who are raised by mothers who have experienced interpersonal violence and who have related distress manifested by either or both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms are at risk for behavioral problems [3, 4]. While the environmental stress and trauma of being in a situation where interpersonal abuse occurs adversely influence a child, maternal mental health problems have
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