Predictors of expressed partner and non-partner violence among patients in substance abuse treatment

Psychological Aggression, Physical Aggression, and Injury in Nonpartner Relationships Among Men and Women in Treatment for Substance-Use Disorders

“…The rates of perpetration were higher than what has been observed in some IPV studies from SUD treatment samples (41%-54%; e.g., Chermack et al, 2001;Fals-Stewart et al, 2002), in a prior study of an SUD treatment sample examining NPV (53%; Chermack et al, 2000), in community-based samples (28% -35%) (Ehrensaft et al, 2003;O'Leary and Williams, 2006), and in the CTS-II normative college sample (49% males, 35% females; Straus et al, 1996). Moreover, rates of injury in our study were approximately four times higher than the 13% reported by college students in the CTS-II (Straus et al, 1996) and higher than the 33% found in a sample of women reporting IPV within a 2-year time frame (Frye et al, 2006).…”

“…They also were asked to record the number of days that they used each of the following: marijuana, cocaine or crack, stimulants (prescribed and nonprescribed), opiates (prescribed and nonprescribed), sedatives (prescribed and nonprescribed), and heroin. The SAOM has demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high internal consistency (Chermack et al, 2000), test-retest reliability (Smith et al, 2006), and concurrent validity with widely used measures of alcohol and drug problem severity measures such as the Addiction Severity Index (McLellan et al, 1992). Although the SAOM asks questions about both prescription use and illicit substance use, the present study focused solely on the illicit use of these substances, whether prescribed or not.…”

“…Results from one of the few studies to focus on this type of aggression showed that 53% of the participants in an SUD treatment sample reported past-year physical aggression toward a nonpartner (Chermack et al, 2000), although that study did not assess psychological aggression or injury. As noted by Chermack et al (2000), the high rates of nonpartner aggression suggest that individuals in SUD treatment settings may have interpersonal diffi culties that extend beyond partner relationships.…”

“…As noted by Chermack et al (2000), the high rates of nonpartner aggression suggest that individuals in SUD treatment settings may have interpersonal diffi culties that extend beyond partner relationships. The present study was designed to address an important gap in the literature on violence in SUD settings by comprehensively examining prevalence rates and predictors of the following types of adult aggression in nonpartner relationships: psychological aggression, physical aggression, and injury.…”

“…Based on previous fi ndings and theory, we hypothesized that, with regard to individual factors, younger age and male gender would be associated with higher levels of psychological aggression, physical aggression, and injury (Chermack et al, 2000;Fonseca et al, 2006). Also consistent with previous fi ndings on the role of childhood factors in current aggression (Dutton, 1995;Markowitz, 2001;O'Hearn and Margolin, 2000), we expected that, although childhood factors would be bivariately related to aggression outcomes, such factors would not be signifi cant in multivariate models owing to the infl uence of more recent individual factors.…”