Screening for Partner Violence Among Family Mediation Clients: Differentiating Types of Abuse

Abstract

Family mediation is mandated in Australia for couples in dispute over separation and parenting as a first step in dispute resolution, except where there is a history of intimate partner violence. However, validation of effective well-differentiated partner violence screening instruments suitable for mediation settings is at an early phase of development. This study contributes to calls for better violence screening instruments in the mediation context to detect a differentiated range of abusive behaviors by examining the reliability and validity of both established scales, and newly developed scales that measured intimate partner violence by partner and by self. The study also aimed to examine relationships between types of abuse, and between gender and types of abuse. A third aim was to examine associations between types of abuse and other relationship indicators such as acrimony and parenting alliance. The data reported here are part of a larger mixed method, naturalistic longitudinal study of clients attending nine family mediation centers in Victoria, Australia. The current analyses on baseline cross-sectional screening data confirmed the reliability of three subscales of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS2), and the reliability and validity of three new scales measuring intimidation, controlling and jealous behavior, and financial control. Most clients disclosed a history of at least one type of violence by partner: 95% reported psychological aggression, 72% controlling and jealous behavior, 50% financial control, and 35% physical assault. Higher rates of abuse perpetration were reported by partner versus by self, and gender differences were identified. There were strong associations between certain patterns of psychologically abusive behavior and both acrimony and parenting alliance. The implications for family mediation services and future research are discussed.

Automated Analysis of Domestic Violence Police Reports to Explore Abuse Types and Victim Injuries: Text Mining Study

“…The most common abuse type in our dataset was nonphysical and involved “emotional/verbal abuse,” which is consistent with the recent findings showing that nonphysical abuse types are more prevalent than physical ones [34] and that victims of domestic violence abuse are more likely to sustain certain types of injuries such as cuts and fractures than others [34,35]. Domestic violence can also take myriad physical forms, ranging from victim intimidation to cases where serious and grievous bodily harm is caused by a specific type of abuse (eg, “punching,” “stabbing,” and “choking”), which have both short- and long-term physical and mental health consequences [9-11].…”

“…Domestic violence has various forms—from physical to emotional and verbal abuse. The type of abuse received and perpetrated may vary by gender, with each type bearing short- and long-term (physical and mental) health consequences for the victims [8-11]. Domestic violence bears a significant economic cost: Within Australia alone, the cost of violence against women was around Aus $22.2 billion in 2015-2016 [2,3,12].…”

Domestic Violence in Separated Couples in Italian Context: Communalities and Singularities of Women and Men Experiences

“…Intimate partner violence includes both verbal (e.g., insults, yelling, humiliation) and physical (e.g., pushing, shoving, choking) behaviors, that often tend to co-occur ( Pepper and Sand, 2015 ). Psychological abuse comprises all devaluing or humiliating behaviors and forms of dominance and isolation ( Cleak et al, 2018 ). Longobardi (2017) , reporting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classification ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015 ), defines four main types of IPV: physical, sexual, stalking, and psychological.…”

“…International studies indicate that leaving a violent partner may increase the risk of more severe, or even fatal, violence. Indeed, the risk of violence increases during the process of separation when emotions are intensified ( Cleak et al, 2018 ). In this process, destructive communication, such as throwing insults or bringing up events from the past, breeds strong relationship dissatisfaction.…”

Practicing Best Practice: A 10‐Year Retrospective on Universal Risk Screening in a Mediation and Counseling Organization

“…These two studies about Family DOORS overcome the challenges in other studies which often rely on smaller, self‐selected samples, with gender imbalance, non‐paired data, and lack of external criterion validation (e.g. Cleak, Schofield, Axelsen, & Bickerdike, 2015). Furthermore, the Family DOORS was designed to be a holistic risk screening able to detect both risks of victimization and also perpetration.…”