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Webs of causation in violent relationships
Author(s) -
Katerndahl David,
Burge Sandra,
Ferrer Robert,
Becho Johanna,
Wood Robert
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1111/jep.12259
Subject(s) - domestic violence , wife , psychology , psychological intervention , poison control , injury prevention , causality (physics) , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , clinical psychology , feeling , marital status , developmental psychology , medicine , social psychology , psychiatry , medical emergency , population , environmental health , physics , quantum mechanics , political science , law
Rationale, aims and objectives Predictors of intimate partner violence ( IPV ) include husband, wife and relational characteristics. However, we know little about the proximal, day‐to‐day triggering of abusive events. The purpose of the study was to analyse the daily temporal relationships among environmental, relational and violence variables in violent marital relationships. Method Two hundred adult primary care women who experienced violence in the previous month were recruited from six primary care clinics. Women completed daily assessments of household environment, marital relationship and violence using telephone interactive verbal response for 12 weeks. Same‐day correlates were sought using cross‐correlations among the environmental, relational and violence factors. Prior‐day and prior‐week associations were sought using vector autoregressions. Results Except for wife's alcohol intake, all household environment and relationship factors demonstrated significant same‐day correlations with IPV . However, prior‐day violence by the husband, hassles, lack of husband's alcohol intake, emotional upset and marital distance were significantly related to current husband‐perpetrated violence. Wife's violence depended upon her prior‐day violence and alcohol intake only. All factors were related to husband‐perpetrated violence in the subsequent week. Only wife's alcohol intake and husband's seeking forgiveness did not feedforward. In addition to the presence of multiple interdependent factors, circular causality was noted for marital distance and feeling upset. Conclusions IPV was due to multiple interdependent factors, feedforward dynamics and circular causality as expected in complex systems. The complex dynamics imply that simple interventions may have little chance of success, but understanding couple‐specific dynamics may allow women to recognize high‐risk prior‐day profiles and take preventive action.