Perpetration patterns and environmental contexts of IPV in Sweden: Relationships with adult mental health
Section snippets
The current study
Based on a review of the literature, there appears to be a great need for additional in-depth analysis of perpetration patterns and environmental contexts of IPV in Sweden. This study, therefore, first aims to evaluate whether IPV severity varies by perpetration pattern and environmental context. Male perpetration of IPV has been shown to be more severe in nature than female-perpetrated violence in American samples (Capaldi et al., 2009, Weston et al., 2005), and it is postulated that a similar
Participants
Participants in the current study were drawn from a nationally representative dataset of 2500 Swedish adults, who participated in the RESUMÉ-project (Cater, Andershed, & Andershed, 2013). The main objective of the RESUMÉ-project was to study prevalence of victimization to different kinds of violence during childhood. For the RESUMÈ-project, randomly sampled adults between the ages of 20 and 24 were drawn from the national inhabitant register. Random selection was constrained to proportional
Characteristics of intimate partner violence exposure
On average, the adult respondents reported that the duration of childhood exposure to intimate partner violence was eight years (SD = 5.48). The number of violent parent-figures ranged from one to four, with an average of two (SD = 0.59). Respondents’ reports of the pervasiveness of violence across contexts ranged from one to five locations (M = 1.15, SD = 0.48). There was also a great amount of variability in the severity of IPV, with participants reporting rare violence (11; 30% participants) to very
Discussion
This study aimed to make an original contribution to the field of violence research by examining the various settings in which violence takes place, the patterns of who perpetrates IPV, and the mental health outcomes in adulthood of individuals who witnessed such violence during childhood. Further, these aims were evaluated in a nationally representative sample of Swedish young adults; thus offering distinct information about IPV exposure in a Nordic community population. By delving into the
Conclusion
In sum, the current study employed diverse statistical methods to assess differences in violence severity by reported perpetration pattern (mother-only, father-only, or bidirectional), the association between violence severity and environmental context, and the contribution of these characteristics to adult mental health outcomes in a sample of Swedish adults exposed to IPV as children. Overall, witnessed violence perpetrated in public and by fathers was more severe and was related to poorer
Acknowledgement
This study was financially supported by the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden, but the findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors only.
References (46)
- et al.
Child physical abuse and concurrence of other types of child abuse in Sweden—Associations with health and risk behaviors
Child Abuse & Neglect
(2012) Gender differences in self-reports of intimate partner violence: A review
Aggression and Violent Behavior
(2011)- et al.
Measuring children's exposure to domestic violence: The development and testing of the Child Exposure to Domestic Violence (CEDV) Scale
Children and Youth Services Review
(2008) - et al.
A cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2000) - et al.
Lifetime assessment of poly-victimization in a national sample of children and youth
Child Abuse & Neglect
(2009) Dominance and symmetry in partner violence by male and female university students in 32 nations
Children and Youth Services Review
(2008)- et al.
Domestic violence against women: Systematic review of prevalence studies
Journal of Family Violence
(2010) - et al.
Gender symmetry, sexism, and intimate partner violence
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
(2009) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5
(2013)Men's violence against women in intimate relationships: An account of the situation in Sweden
(2004)
Prevalence and characteristics of child physical abuse in Sweden – Findings from a population-based youth survey
Acta Pædiatrica
Why do women use intimate partner violence? A systematic review of women's motivations
Trauma Violence & Abuse
Unidirectional and bidirectional intimate partner violence among White, Black, and Hispanic couples in the United States
Violence and Victims
Adult health and relationship outcomes among women with abuse experiences during childhood
Violence and Victims
Official incidents of domestic violence: Types, injury, and associations with nonofficial couple aggression
Violence and Victims
A developmental approach to complex PTSD: Childhood and adult cumulative trauma as predictors of symptom complexity
Journal of Traumatic Stress
Differences in the characteristics of intimate femicides the role of relationship state and relationship status
Homicide Studies
Women's violence to men in intimate relationships
British Journal of Criminology
Exposure to abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction among adults who witnessed intimate partner violence as children: Implications for health and social services
Violence and Victims
The relationship between violence in the family of origin and dating violence among college students
Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Acceptability of domestic violence against women in the European Union: A multilevel analysis
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
Cited by (24)
The selective child welfare funnel. Children's exposure to violence and CWS investigations in Sweden
2023, Child Abuse and NeglectAdverse childhood experiences and intimate partner aggression in the US: Sex differences and similarities in psychosocial mediation
2015, Social Science and MedicineCitation Excerpt :Even though use of the CTS tends to produce findings that women may be as likely (DeKeseredy and Schwartz, 1998; Morse, 1995), or even more likely to report intimate partner aggression (Magdol et al., 1997), men are more likely to physically abuse their partner during the course of a year and women are more likely to seek medical care due to perpetration of violence from male partners (Morse, 1995). Even though bi-directional violence does occur, uni-directional violence in which men perpetrate violence towards women is usually more severe compared to that which occurs in bi-directional violence or during uni-directional perpetration of violence from women to men (Miller et al., 2014). Nevertheless, in spite of these differences, operationalizing intimate partner aggression using the CTS does not account for these contextual differences by sex.
Protective factors associated with resilient functioning in young adulthood after childhood exposure to violence
2014, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :Empirical work on poly-victimization has generally shown a dose-response effect of violence exposure on a range of negative outcomes including, posttraumatic stress, depression, anxiety, somatic complaints and delinquency (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner, 2007; Margolin et al., 2010). The powerful cumulative effect of poly-victimization has also been identified in samples of early adults with a history of exposure to violence (Richmond, Elliot, Pierce, Aspelmeier, & Alexander, 2009) and has demonstrated that early adults are multiply influenced by several types of abuse experiences and characteristics (Miller, Cater, Howell, & Graham-Bermann, 2014). It is therefore clear that childhood exposure to such adversities has serious and long-term consequences for mental health.
Child protection fathers' experiences of childhood, intimate partner violence and parenting
2014, Children and Youth Services ReviewCitation Excerpt :The rate of male IPV victimization in the community according to these studies is 5–11%, compared to 17–24% of women (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013; Coker et al., 2002; Office for National Statistics, 2014; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). Interestingly, a nationally representative study of 703 young adults in Sweden who reported exposure to IPV in childhood found that 5% of participants had witnessed unidirectional mother-to-father violence, 22% had witnessed unidirectional father-to-mother violence, and 71% reported bidirectional violence (Miller, Cater, Howell, & Graham-Bermann, 2014). Although there are significantly less male, compared to female, victims of IPV, even 5% of the total population of a country equates to a substantial number of male victims.
Youth victimization in Sweden: Prevalence, characteristics and relation to mental health and behavioral problems in young adulthood
2014, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :Second, this study provides insight into the variety of the victimization that young people experience in different settings and by different perpetrators that research focusing on orthodox definitions of child maltreatment generally cannot provide. The inclusive measures used in this study provides information about higher levels of all types of victimization during lifetime than generally found in other studies for all types, except for male sexual victimization, which was within the range of what has been found in previous reviews, and for neglect, which was lower (cf. Annerbäck et al., 2010; Finkelhor et al., 2007; Gilbert et al., 2009; Hussey et al., 2006; Miller et al., 2014; Radford et al., 2013; Stoltenborgh et al., 2012). It thereby contributes to the literature by providing information about total youth victimization and about possible variations of specific victimization across the world.
Attentional Bias to Threat: Examining Associations with Children’s Emotional Regulation and Interactions with Intimate Partner Violence
2023, Child Psychiatry and Human Development