Understanding the nexus between gender-based violence and mental health among Anglophone internally displaced women in Littoral Cameroon through an intersectional socioecological lens

BACKGROUND: Internally displaced women (IDW) affected by the "Anglophone crisis" in Cameroon navigate a landscape of overlapping vulnerabilities, including displacement-related poverty, gender-based violence (GBV), and systemic linguistic minoritization. While the psychological impact of war is well-documented, the mental health consequences of intersecting urban stressors in host settings like Douala remain under-researched. OBJECTIVE: To explore how displacement, GBV exposure, and Anglophone identity intersect to shape the mental health experiences and resilience strategies of IDW in Douala, Cameroon. METHODS: This qualitative study utilized semi-structured interviews with 33 Anglophone IDW (Median age: 34 years); residing in the Littoral Region for a median duration of 5 years). Participants were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling from various urban neighborhoods (e.g., Bonabéri, Mbanga). Data were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis using NVivo 12, guided by an intersectional socio-ecological framework. RESULTS: Four major themes emerged: (1) "Swallowed Silence," where emotional repression functions as a strategic social protection against stigma; (2) Embodied Trauma and Cognitive Paralysis, manifesting as somatic distress and dissociation; (3) Chronic Survival Anxiety, driven by the "scarcity mindset" of economic precarity and ethno-linguistic discrimination; and (4) Adaptive Resilience, anchored in informal peer networks, spirituality, and cognitive restructuring. CONCLUSION: Mental health among Anglophone IDW is a dynamic process shaped more by ongoing structural "daily stressors" than by past events alone. Interventions must transcend clinical models to integrate GBV prevention, livelihood protection, and culturally safe mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services delivered in English and Pidgin.