The Roles of Alcohol Use Severity and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms as Risk Factors for Women's Intimate Partner Violence Experiences

Background: To reduce women's risk for intimate partner violence (IPV), it is critical to elucidate malleable psychiatric and behavioral health risk factors. We aimed to identify if alcohol use problems moderate the associations between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and past-year IPV victimization experiences among female veterans, a population at high risk for IPV. Methods: Female veterans ( N  = 198) completed mail surveys assessing PTSD symptoms, alcohol use, and IPV at two time points between 2012 and 2013. Regression analyses were used to examine the associations between PTSD symptoms and alcohol use at Time 1 with past-year IPV at Time 2. Results: More than a third of women (36.9%) reported past-year IPV. Alcohol use severity significantly moderated the association between PTSD symptoms and past-year physical IPV. Specifically, there was a significant positive association between PTSD symptoms and past-year IPV at high levels of alcohol use severity, but not at low or average levels of alcohol use. Although both PTSD symptoms and alcohol use were independent risk factors for past-year sexual and psychological IPV, no moderating effect was found for these IPV types. Conclusions: Findings can inform tailored IPV, psychiatric, and behavioral health screening and counseling. Such practices may reduce psychiatric distress and IPV risk.