(PS10-71) Impulsivity, Emotion Regulation, and Intimate Partner Violence Severity in High Risk Couples

Abstract Text:

Introduction: Alcohol-related intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem and relationships between impulsivity and IPV severity are well-established. Emotion regulation (ER) skills are a potential modifiable risk factor for IPV and alcohol use disorder. However, it is critical to examine whether adaptive ER modifies this relationship among high risk couples. In other words, it is crucial not only to understand whether one’s own ER moderates the relationship between their impulsivity and IPV perpetration, but also whether their partner’s ER skills moderate this relationship. Examining the roles of modifiable risk factors in a high risk dyadic context to identify potential targets for therapeutic intervention will advance our understanding of this clinically significant and pressing public health problem.

Method: 100 couples with a history of physical IPV and alcohol use disorder completed measures of cognitive ER (CERQ), impulsivity (Short UPPS-P), physical and psychological IPV perpetration (CTS-2), and alcohol use problems (AUDIT). The sample had an average age of 35.4 (SD = 11.27) with 8% of dyads identifying as being in a same sex relationship and 71.5% of individuals meeting AUDIT cutoff for clinically significant alcohol use problems. Four moderation mixed effects path analytic models were conducted examining actor and partner adaptive ER moderators on the relationship between actors’ impulsivity and actors’ physical and psychological IPV perpetration severity.

Results: Contrary to hypotheses, neither actors’ nor their partners’ adaptive ER skills moderated the relationship between impulsivity and IPV perpetration severity outcomes. There was a main effect of impulsivity on severity of psychological IPV perpetration, t(2) = 1.29, p < .05, but not physical IPV perpetration. In addition, alcohol use disorder symptom severity was significantly associated with the severity of physical IPV perpetration, t(2) = 2.40, p < .05, and marginally associated with severity of psychological IPV perpetration t(2) = 1.67, p < .10.

Discussion: The current work investigates adaptive cognitive ER as a potential therapeutically modifiable protective factor for IPV in a high risk sample. Results in this high risk dyadic sample failed to find support for focusing on adaptive ER skills in moderating the impulsivity to IPV perpetration severity relationship. While impulsivity was associated with the severity of psychological IPV perpetration in this sample, it was not associated with physical IPV perpetration which is inconsistent with prior literature. Only alcohol use symptom severity was consistently associated with IPV severity perpetration. These results suggest that it may be prudent for dyadic interventions with couples at highest risk for IPV to focus on reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems, if present. Future work should examine other potential modifiable risk factors such as use of protective behavioral strategies and emotion regulation skills that are not cognitive in nature, such as those measured here. In addition, it is important to better understand the in-the-moment communication and decision-making processes that unfold in IPV encounters among high-risk dyads.