Reducing intimate partner violence: a pilot evaluation of an intervention program

Abstract

The current study describes a 20-week community-based intimate partner violence (IPV) intervention program delivered in British Columbia, Canada, and provides a preliminary evaluation of program impacts. The Men in Healthy Relationships program targets men who have perpetrated IPV and who voluntarily choose to participate in a program to learn healthy intimate partner relationship strategies. The intervention was evaluated across three program cycles in a pretest–posttest single group design, with a total of 46 participants enrolled. Twenty-eight men completed the pretest survey; analyses focus on the subset of 17 participants who reported having a current intimate partner and who completed the Abusive Behavior Inventory, and the 14–21 participants who completed pretest and posttest questions regarding knowledge and skills learned in the program. Results from the pilot evaluation suggest that the Men in Healthy Relationships program is a promising approach to decreasing abusive behavior, with participants showing significant decreases in both physical and psychological abuse. In addition, participants increased their knowledge and use of calming techniques and “time-outs” to reduce feelings of anger. Limitations and future research are discussed, along with implications for IPV intervention programing for voluntary participants.

Keywords:

• intimate partner violence
• domestic violence
• intervention program
• evaluation
• community-based rehabilitation

Notes

Notes

1 To protect confidentiality of respondents, the program name is a pseudonym.

2 Also referred to as Batterer Intervention Programs or BIPs.

3 Issues pertaining to participant literacy were not indicated as a concern by program staff. However, program staff was instructed that they could assist participants should they have issues with literacy such as reading or understanding the survey questions. Directly assisting participants with their survey responses was discouraged.

4 When cell counts are small (i.e. less than 5), Fisher’s exact chi-square test is considered to provide more accurate estimations of significance compared to Pearson’s chi-square test.

5 Item 21 was removed from the scale by Shepard and Campbell due to a low response rate and a negative correlation with the total ABI scale; for this study, this item was removed as well.

6 Characteristics of the set of participants who completed the ABI (n = 17) are also provided in Table 3.

7 The reason for low follow-up response rates is not specifically known. However, substantial effort was put forth by the program manager to collect follow-up surveys, and the majority of participants who completed the pretest and posttest surveys were successfully contacted by the program manager 6 months following the program. As such, it is not believed that arrest/incarceration was the primary reason for low response rates.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Community Safety and Crime Prevention Branch.