Alcohol Use and Latent Profiles of Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread social problem that is associated with alcohol misuse. Victim-survivors (n = 1,045) were interviewed after police-involved IPV incidents. Latent profile analysis resulted in 2 classes of IPV perpetrators. The severe IPV class was characterized by more frequent and severe physical violence, stalking and harassment, risk of future homicide, and increased psychological consequences of IPV for the victim-survivor. Logistic regression found that the frequency of perpetrator alcohol misuse was associated with membership in the severe IPV class. Social workers must intervene effectively when cooccurring alcohol misuse and IPV perpetration are present.

KEYWORDS:

• alcohol misuse
• domestic violence
• intimate partner violence
• risk assessment
• stalking

FUNDING

Funding support for this project was provided by Grant 2008-WG-BX-0002 from the National Institute of Justice.

Notes

¹ We use the term victim-survivor throughout this article (see also Messing, Ward-Lasher, Thaller & Bagwell, 2015). The terms victim and survivor are used in the literature and the field, generally indicating women who are at different stages of the healing process. In order to reflect our social work values of empowerment and self-determination, we use the term victim-survivor to indicate that it is the choice of each individual to determine the label that best fits their experience.

Additional information

Funding

Funding support for this project was provided by Grant 2008-WG-BX-0002 from the National Institute of Justice.