Anger, problematic alcohol use, and intimate partner violence victimisation and perpetration

Abstract

Background: Anger and problematic alcohol use have been established as individual risk factors for intimate partner violence (IPV) victimisation and perpetration, but it is unknown how these factors convey risk for IPV perpetration for men and women within the context of mutually violent relationships.

Hypotheses: Anger and problematic alcohol use were hypothesised to mediate the association between IPV victimisation and perpetration for men and women, with direct and indirect influences from partner variables.

Methods: Heterosexual couples (N = 215) at high-risk for IPV completed questionnaires indexing trait anger, problematic alcohol use and extent of past-year IPV perpetration and victimisation. An actor-partner interdependence modelling (APIM) framework was used to evaluate these cross-sectional data for two hypothesised models and one parsimonious alternative.

Results: The best-fitting model indicated that IPV victimisation showed the strongest direct effect on physical IPV perpetration for both men and women. For women, but not men, the indirect effect of IPV victimisation on physical IPV perpetration through anger approached significance. For men, but not women, the victimisation-perpetration indirect effect through problematic drinking approached significance.

Implications for clinical practice: The results suggest that anger and problem drinking patterns play different yet important roles for men and women in mutually violent relationships.

Figure 1

Hypothesised models. For Model 1, anger and problematic alcohol use partially mediate the association between IPV victimisation and IPV perpetration (solid lines), with (A) partner problematic alcohol use as direct effect on actor IPV perpetration (dotted lines). Model 2 tests the same partial mediating pathways for anger and alcohol use, but presents (B) a feedback loop for partner drinking on actor drinking (dashed lines) instead of direct effects on partner IPV perpetration. Model 3 removes all partner influences and tests a parsimonious model for comparison (solid lines only)

Figure 2

Indirect effect of IPV victimisation on IPV perpetration through anger for women; IPV victimisation on IPV perpetration through alcohol use for men, with unidirectional man-to-woman alcohol use partner effect. The path values represent the standardised beta coefficients with standard error presented in parentheses. Bold lines represent significant pathways, solid lines represent marginally significant pathways and dashed lines represent non-significant pathways. *p < .05; **p < .01. Intimate partner violence (IPV).