Longitudinal associations of intimate partner violence attitudes and perpetration: Dyadic couples data from a randomized controlled trial in rural India

Abstract

We conducted longitudinal analyses examining the associations between intimate partner violence (IPV) attitudes and women's reported IPV in couples (N = 762) using 3 waves of data from a randomized controlled trial in Maharashtra, India. We found that, between Waves 1 and 2, men's and women's acceptance of IPV in the overall population decreased significantly while reports of IPV increased. These changes, we hypothesize, are evidence of an exogenous shock, possibly a high profile rape in Delhi in December 2012, that may have impacted the entire population. Cross-sectional associations between men's attitudes towards IPV and reported IPV were not significant in Wave 1, while positively and significantly associated in Waves 2 and 3. Longitudinal analysis showed that reduction in men's acceptance of IPV between Waves 1 and 2 was associated with a lower likelihood of reported IPV in Wave 3. Women's Wave 1 acceptance of IPV was positively associated with reported IPV in the Wave 1 cross-sectional analysis, while Wave 2 and Wave 3 measures of IPV acceptance were negatively associated with reported IPV in Waves 2 and 3 respectively. Longitudinal analyses of the change in women's attitudes towards IPV from Wave 1 to 2 and reported IPV in Wave 3 were insignificant. However, When women first reported IPV in Waves 2 or 3 they were less likely to report acceptance of IPV in that same wave. Findings suggest that changes in husbands' IPV acceptance is predictive of subsequent IPV, while newly experienced IPV predicts decreased IPV acceptance for women. Wave 2 and Wave 3 results were significant for the control group only, evidence that the intervention affected those associations, potentially changing attitudes more quickly than behavior. We recommend interventions that expose community opposition to IPV as a new social norm, and analysis of how the 2012 Delhi rape case may have affected these norms.

Keywords: Attitudes; Couples level data; India; Intimate partner violence; Randomized controlled trial; Social norms.

Fig. 1

A man’s acceptance of IPV in Wave 1 was not correlated with the probability that his wife reported IPV, but was positively correlated in Waves 2 and 3, for those in the control group.

Fig. 2

Here we see how the association between women’s attitudes towards IPV and reporting IPV differs by wave, and treatment group. In Wave 1 a woman’s acceptance of IPV was associated with an increased probability of reporting IPV for both treatment and control. This dynamic shifted in Waves 2 and 3 for the control group, for whom those who experienced IPV were less likely to report acceptance of it.

Fig. 3

Those who newly experienced IPV in WV2 were significantly less likely to accept it in WV2 both in comparison to their WV1 IPV acceptance and in comparison to the WV2 reports of those who reported no IPV at all or those who had already reported it in WV1. This pattern holds for those who newly experienced IPV in Wave 3, who, in comparisons to the other members of the population, report lower acceptance of IPV in Wave 3.

Fig. 4

Of those participants whose wives did not report IPV in Wave 1, those in the treatment group were less likely to have their wives report experiencing IPV in Wave 3. Of those whose wives did report IPV in Wave 1, there is no difference between control and treatment reported IPV in Wave 3. This suggest that the intervention was successful at preventing new IPV but did not have an impact on already occurring IPV.