#9 The Impact and Consequences of Partner Abuse on Partners

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to review and critique the existing literature on the psychological and physical consequences of psychological and physical abuse on partners. In the current study, a comprehensive review of the literature was conducted using a variety of search engines and key terms (e.g., abuse, aggression, violence; intimate partner, relationship, partner, spousal; psychological, emotional, physical). We included studies examining male and/or female abusers and we included studies examining male and/or female victims. Within our review of physical consequences, we included studies that examined victims' health behaviors (e.g., smoking) as a possible consequence of abuse.We narrowed our review to studies published from 1989-2012, studies published in English, studies published in peer-reviewed journals, and studies containing empirical data.Consequently, we excluded book chapters that did not include empirical data and excluded doctoral dissertations. We also excluded studies examining the consequences of sexual abuse, as that type of abuse was reviewed in another section of this project. We also excluded studies examining the consequences of abuse on children or on parenting behaviors, as those consequences were reviewed in another section of this project. Finally, we did not include studies that focused exclusively on economic or social consequences for victims or society; however, we did include economic consequences to victims in our tables if those consequences were investigated as part of a study we were already including in our review.

Evaluating the Impact of Intimate Partner Violence: A Comparison of Men in Treatment and Their (Ex-) Partners Accounts

“…The main psychological impacts referred by the victims/survivors themselves are (a) short-term psychological impacts, such as anger, fear, or shock; and (b) long-term psychological impacts, such as anxiety, loss of self-confidence, or feeling vulnerable [5]. Regrettably, the FRA survey did not analyze the impact of psychological IPV, despite this, several studies have pointed out that psychological abuse has at least as important consequences as physical abuse [10][11][12].…”