Beyond Physical and Mental Health: The Broader Impacts of Intimate Partner Violence on Psychosocial Well-Being Among Women and Men Veterans

Research on the consequences of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) has predominantly focused on specific physical and mental health outcomes and have emphasized the impacts for women. Fewer studies have comprehensively documented IPV impacts on other aspects of psychosocial well-being and examined effects for both women and men. A sample of 1133 veterans (52.3% women) completed two web-based surveys approximately one year apart. Women did not differ from men with respect to their odds of experiencing past year overall IPV (OR = 1.06, 95% CI [0.81, 1.38]) but were more likely to experience overall IPV prior to the past year (OR = 1.52, 95% CI [1.19, 1.95]). Gender-stratified multivariate regressions revealed that greater frequency of past year IPV experiences was associated with lower psychosocial well-being with respect to finances (β = -0.22, p < 0.001), health (β = -0.19, p < 0.001), intimate relationships (β = -0.14, p = 0.007), and broader social relationships (β = -0.17, p = 0.018), whereas greater frequency of IPV prior to the past year was associated with lower psychosocial well-being with respect to employment (β = -0.17, p = 0.002), finances (β = -0.14, p = 0.020), and health (β = -0.16, p = 0.012) among women. For men, nonsignificant associations were observed for all associations of IPV with psychosocial well-being outcomes. Results point to the importance of attending to broader aspects of psychosocial well-being that may represent modifiable intervention targets among women who have experienced IPV. Further research is needed to better understand the psychosocial well-being impacts of IPV for men.