Intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors often do not seek critically needed help. A good understanding of the relationship between the pattern of violence and help-seeking is critical to developing ...adequate services for the survivors, as well as for reaching out to those who do not seek help. This study used the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey to examine how IPV survivor’s help-seeking varies, depending on the characteristics of the survivors and the pattern of victimization. Logistic regression analyses were conducted, with the survivors’ help-seeking and use of formal or informal help as the dependent variables. The study results show that women are the primary victims of IPV, that the pattern of victimization is associated with both whether survivors seek help or not, and which help sources they utilize, if any. IPV consequences are also associated with survivors’ help-seeking, as are demographic factors such as age, gender, race, and immigration status.
This study examined intimate partner violence patterns using the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, a nationally representative sample collected in 2010. The latent class analysis ...detected six distinctive patterns: Sexual Violence, Psychological Aggression, Multiple Violence, Coercive Control, Physical and Psychological Violence, and Stalking. Multiple Violence was the most common among males, while Coercive Control was the most common among females. Multiple Violence and Physical and Psychological Violence perpetrators inflicted more negative health consequences than the other types. Intervention and prevention approaches that consider perpetrator types as a part of survivor need assessments will improve services.
This study examines how gender interacts with polyvictimization patterns in survivors’ health problems using 8,587 survivors of intimate partner violence from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual ...Violence Survey, a nationally representative sample collected in 2010. Polyvictimization included six categories that were created in our previous work: sexual violence, physical and psychological violence, coercive control, multiple violence, stalking, and psychological aggression. Multiple violence was associated with chronic pain, headache, difficulty sleeping, and poor health perception. Females experiencing coercive control were more likely to have chronic pain than males. The appropriate assessment of gendered patterns of polyvictimization, and relevant subsequent services and support will better address health problems among survivors.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) results in numerous negative physical and mental health consequences. Research shows that many factors affect survivors’ help-seeking decisions. Previous studies were ...limited by small samples, and by excluding multiple forms of IPV consequences and multiple types of help sources. This study attempted to fill this gap by using a nationally representative dataset that collected data on multiple consequences of violence and formal sources of help. This study used the National Crime Victimization Survey to examine factors for female survivors’ help-seeking (
n
= 474). The main variables were formal help-seeking (medical, legal), types of victimization and consequences, and demographics. All were examined through logistic regression analyses. Black/African American survivors sought more formal help than their White counterparts. Sexually victimized survivors used less legal help than those victimized by physical violence. These results suggest that survivors’ formal help-seeking should be viewed in a broad health context, including their experienced victimization, subsequent medical needs, and the circumstances and conditions underlying their decision to seek a particular type of help. Future research needs to examine the circumstances and outcomes of both formal and informal help-seeking by racial/ethnic minorities. Law enforcement officers may be able to collaborate with medical care systems to ensure that survivors receive proper treatment. Future research is needed to better understand survivors’ help-seeking as navigating through complicated webs of their experienced victimization, subsequent medical needs, and the circumstances and conditions underlying their decision to seek which type of help.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, and three adulthood health outcomes—perceived ...physical and mental health and depression—among college students. We analyzed the direct effects of a subset of ACEs including community violence, peer victimization, child abuse and neglect, exposure to domestic violence, and other physical and sexual victimization and a subset of IPV victimization including threats, physical, sexual, technological, and psychological violence on health, and the indirect effect of IPV victimization on the relationships between ACEs and health. We analyzed 3,535 college students from seven universities who reported information about major variables of interest. Results: Findings from structural equation modeling indicate that ACEs are positively associated with poorer perceived physical health (
β
= .37,
p
< .001), poorer mental health (
β
= .64,
p
< .001), and higher levels of depression (
β
= .40,
p
< .001). IPV victimization is positively associated with poorer perceived physical health (
β
= .36,
p
< .001), poorer mental health (
β
= .23,
p
< .001), and higher levels of depression (
β
= .16,
p
< .001). In addition, IPV victimization partially mediates the impacts of ACEs on perceived physical health (
β
= .06,
p
< .001), mental health (
β
= .28,
p
< .001), and depression (
β
= .10,
p
< .001). ACEs influenced adulthood health outcomes both physically and mentally via IPV victimization. This study suggests a life-course perspective and trauma-informed approach that incorporates the long-term effect of ACEs and IPV victimization on adulthood well-being.
The study examined the effect of community environments, such as community cohesion, community safety, and community poverty, in childhood on the likelihood of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) ...perpetration and victimization in young adulthood. The study used the cross-sectional survey data of 2,082 college students collected in 2016–2017 from six universities in the U.S. and the data for the childhood community environment from the 2007–2011 American Community Survey. Hierarchical regressions were performed separately by gender to 1) assess the effects of community factors in addition to individual factors for IPV perpetration and victimization, and to 2) identify the interaction effect of community cohesion with community poverty on IPV perpetration and victimization. Community factors of community cohesion and community poverty were significantly correlated to different types of IPV. For IPV perpetration, only community cohesion was significant for, the interaction effect between community cohesion and poverty showed that higher community cohesion lowered the risk of community poverty on later IPV perpetration in both genders. For IPV victimization, only female students were affected by community poverty, whereas none of the community factors had an impact on male students. The findings imply the significance of early interventions and policies strengthening the community environment, especially community cohesion, for preventing IPV. The findings also suggest that assessing risk and protective factors on IPV in multiple contexts during childhood is important to develop effective programs preventing IPV.
Purpose
This study examines the relationships among adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization, and two types of adulthood help-seeking behaviors in ...adulthood—formal and informal. The effects of IPV on formal and informal help-seeking, and the effects of ACEs on IPV and formal and informal help-seeking were assessed. Method: The analytic sample of this study is 591 college students from seven universities in the U.S. and Canada who reported at least one type of ACE and IPV victimization. Results: Results from structural equation modeling show that ACEs were positively associated with IPV victimization. IPV victimization was positively associated with formal and informal help-seeking. ACEs were positively associated with formal but not informal help-seeking. Conclusions: These findings suggest that ACEs influence not only violent experiences in adulthood but also behaviors in relation to seeking help following victimization in adulthood.
Intimate partner violence against women (IPV) affects all populations, but significant variations among these groups have been suggested. However, research results on racial differences in IPV are ...not only inconclusive, they are also limited–particularly with regard to racial minorities. As a result, it has been challenging for practitioners and service providers in many communities to serve an increasing number of racial minority clients. This study used the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES) to examine differences in the prevalence of IPV, and associated factors, among major race groups in the U.S. Included variables were age, race, financial security, employment, education, social network, IPV perpetration and victimization, and severity of IPV. The results showed that Blacks were victimized the most, followed by Whites and Latinos, and Asians were victimized the least. Asians were the least likely to be victimized by IPV, even when controlling for sociodemographic variables. The odds of victimization for Blacks and Latinos were not significantly different from Whites. Financial security and age affected IPV victimization. Those who perceived themselves as financially secure were less likely to be victimized than those who did not. The older were less likely to be victimized than the younger. Employment, education, and social networks did not affect victimization. Race was not a significant predictor of perpetration, when controlling for other variables. Age was the only predictor of perpetration: the older were less likely to perpetrate IPV than the younger.
Multiple types of childhood adversities are risk factors for dating violence among college-age youth and in turn, dating violence is associated with alcohol use. This work quantitatively examines ...associations of childhood adversity and dating violence with alcohol use among college students using a cumulative stress approach. Multi-campus surveys were collected from March to December 2016 in four universities across the United States and Canada (n = 3,710). Latent class analysis identified patterns of childhood adversity and dating violence. Regression analyses investigated the associations of latent class patterns with past year number of drinks, alcohol use frequency, and problematic drinking. Latent class analysis produced seven classes: “low violence exposure” (18.5%), “predominantly peer violence” (28.9%), “peer violence and psychological child abuse” (10.8%), “peer and parental domestic violence” (9.9%), “peer and psychological dating violence” (17%), “peer and dating violence” (6.6%), and “childhood adversity and psychological dating violence” (8.3%). Compared to the “low violence exposure” group, “peer and psychological dating violence” (B = .114, p < .05), “peer and dating violence” (B = .143, p < .05), and “childhood adversity and psychological dating violence” (B = .183, p < .001) groups were significantly associated with problematic drinking. Results highlight how childhood adversity and dating violence contribute to problematic alcohol use, suggesting interventions that address both childhood adversity and dating violence may be most effective at reducing alcohol misuse among college students.
Many studies have been conducted on gender differences in intimate partner violence (IPV), producing inconsistent results. Some studies report that men were victimized by IPV as much as women were, ...whereas others find that IPV was predominantly perpetrated by men against women. The nature and context of IPV may be crucial to understanding gender differences in IPV, but national data collections do not regularly report on this information. This study expects to fill this gap by using nationally representative data to examine differences in the nature and context of IPV between male and female perpetrators. This study uses the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES). Descriptive statistics for each gender are first obtained (n = 2,190). A discriminant analysis is used with gender as a grouping variable, including only perpetrators of IPV (n = 236). The independent variables are age, race, education, employment, financial security, frequency and severity of IPV, controlling behaviors, and the initiator of physical arguments. The study findings suggest that women and men do not vary much in the prevalence, frequency, and severity of IPV, controlling behaviors, or the initiation of physical arguments. They also suggest that those variables are rather weak in differentiating IPV against men from IPV against women. Since the study revealed some gender differences in IPV and, at the same time, encountered methodological difficulties in convincingly showing them as real gender differences, more research is clearly needed.
