Proximal Antecedents-Focused Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence Victims, Perpetrators, and Couples Tailored for Victim and Perpetrator Typologies

Project Information

IPV INTERVENTION

Grant agreement ID: 891136

DOI

10.3030/891136

Project closed

EC signature date 3 April 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 21 June 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 155 310,72

EU contribution

€ 155 310,72

Coordinated by

ISTANBUL UNIVERSITESI
Türkiye

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IPV INTERVENTION (Proximal Antecedents-Focused Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence Victims, Perpetrators, and Couples Tailored for Victim and Perpetrator Typologies)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2022-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

This EU-funded project focused on the issue of gender-based intimate partner violence (IPV) within heterosexual relationships. IPV is a worldwide problem where any members of the dyad may be victims or perpetrators. There is a debate with regards to the existence and the direction of the power imbalance between genders. However, the studies in the literature portray that more women than men are victims of severe violence and the seriousness of outcomes is higher for women. IPV has further negative effects on other family members such as children. The societal economic burden of IPV is high, as well. This existing information points to the urgency to intervene in IPV victimization.
The current project had 4 objectives to come up with refined solutions to this issue:
1) to prepare manuals for IPV interventions with victims, perpetrators, and couples highlighting the significance of proximal antecedents
2) to search for the possible existence of victim typologies
3) to adapt the manuals (obtained via Objective 1) to the possible victim (based on the information obtained in Objective 2) and perpetrator typologies (based on the earlier research) and age groups (based on the earlier research)
4) to apply the intervention manual for victims.
The results of the project suggested having a deeper understanding of victims' perspectives on the interaction between proximal antecedents and coping before an intervention implementation (Objectives 1, 3, and 4). It was also found that the hot moment of IPV is predicted by variables related to men as opposed to women, in heterosexual relationships implying that perpetrator typologies explain more variance as opposed to victim typologies (Objective 2)

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The workflow of the project covered all 4 objectives in a non-sequential order.
The first step encompassed work packages related to Objective 2. The related work for this step was carried out and the results were obtained. The results of the victim typology study utilising a Turkish IPV victim women sample revealed two clusters. The low-level cluster women reported lower numbers of interaction disagreements and acts of coping than the high-level cluster. Their victimisation scores and psychological symptom levels were also lower than the high-level cluster. These results referred to an IPV severity-based typology among victims instead of a behavioural/contextual differentiation as expected. This highlighted the crucial role of proximal antecedents as violent motives of men. So, a comparison study with the US sample utilised not only victims but the whole dyad to focus on borderline and antisocial personality psychopathologies as signifiers of proximal antecedents. These two personality psychopathologies were selected because of their explanatory role on male perpetrator typologies. The research question was if personality psychopathologies of men would be more predictive of IPV perpetration than personality psychopathologies of women. The results revealed that own antisocial personality psychopathology predicted own IPV perpetration for both genders. There was no partner effect. However, own and partner’s borderline personality psychopathology predicted men’s IPV perpetration whereas women’s IPV perpetration was not predicted either by women’s and men’s borderline personality psychopathology. Overall, these results underlined that proximal antecedents such as personality psychopathologies were better queries for male IPV perpetration.
The second step of the action focused on Objectives 1, 3, and 4. The manual preparation for couples was declined (Objective 1). There have been some conjoint treatment options in Europe for IPV+ couples. However, couple-level interventions against IPV are still an issue of debate. Many US states prohibit couple-level interventions against IPV. Since the results obtained in earlier steps did not provide strong support for the role of proximal antecedents in conjoint interventions, the ethical re-evaluation of this Objective suggested a higher risk compared to possible benefits for a proximal antecedents-focused intervention. The plans to prepare manuals for perpetrators were cancelled because there have been recent efforts by other researchers to prepare intervention studies for perpetrators utilising proximal factors (Objective 1). The preparation (Objective 1) and implementation (Objective 4) of a proximal antecedents-focused intervention manual for victims were also cancelled following the earlier steps of the project suggesting that there is a need to understand victims’ perspectives on the conceptual framework. At this step, qualitative data was utilized to understand how IPV victim women perceive the role of proximal antecedents and ways of coping with them. The coded themes are under discussion.
The third step of the project covered the secondment and focused on the discussion of the possible age-related considerations (Objective 3). The results of this step suggested the possibility of proximal antecedents as explanatory factors of adolescent sexual dating violence.
The results with regard to the first step will be disseminated in two academic papers. The first one has been completed and is under review. The second one is under editing by the project supervisor. The second step will be disseminated in an academic paper, as well. This paper is in preparation. There was one conference paper to disseminate the project results in general and the third step in particular (see publications). The results were concurrently shared with research groups at the host institution, the beneficiary, and the secondment as well as the research networks of the affiliates. The non-academic collaborator organisations were also informed about the work achieved so far. These outreach activities included face-to-face, remote gatherings, and flyers. The project website and the researcher’s official Instagram account (@reconnect_iu) further disseminated the project results. A podcast was recorded and shared on the research website.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results obtained so far presented breakthrough ideas for the improvement of IPV theory and practice especially for understanding gender role dynamics and intervention studies. These results were shared with academics and social workers. So, the project stimulated continuous translation between theory and practice.
The project coordinator was in touch with other nation-level intervention project teams. The current project has been nurturing and being nurtured by these efforts. The results have been concurrently and rapidly communicated. The nation-level project teams included local governors. They genuinely presented easy and effective means to communicate the results of the ongoing projects in a collective manner. New ideas flourished during these communication efforts. One of the concrete ideas was moving toward preventive interventions for IPV victims beyond the current efforts to crisis management and effective problem-solving ideals. All these efforts are hoped to create a positive impact on the societal level. Indeed, members of the society who are in touch with the project teams have been voluntarily providing feedback to the project coordinator. These discussions supported that there is a positive societal impact of the project.

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