Content area
Full Text
J Fam Viol (2008) 23:149160 DOI 10.1007/s10896-007-9137-4
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Marital Satisfaction and Marital Discord as Risk Markers for Intimate Partner Violence: A Meta-analytic Review
Sandra M. Stith & Narkia M. Green &
Douglas B. Smith & David B. Ward
Published online: 20 September 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract A meta-analysis investigating the relationship between marital satisfaction/discord and intimate partner violence (IPV) in heterosexual relationships was conducted with 32 articles. Overall, a small-to-moderate effect size (r=0.27) indicated a significant and negative relationship existed between marital satisfaction/discord and IPV. Moderator analyses found no differences between effect size based on construct examined (discord or satisfaction). However, the magnitudes of observed effect sizes were influenced by other moderator variables, including the use of standardized versus non-standardized measures, gender of the offender and victim, role in the violence (perpetrator versus victim), and sample type (clinical versus community). The data suggests that gender is an especially important moderator variable in understanding the relationship between marital satisfaction/discord and IPV.
Keywords Marital satisfaction . Marital discord . Risk markers . Intimate partner violence . Gender . Meta-analysis
Every year millions of men and women in the USA are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). When physical aggression is the subject of inquiry, studies consistently find as many women self-report perpetrating physical aggression as do men. For example, a meta-analysis (Archer 2000) of gender differences in rates of physical aggression with intimate partners found equivalent rates of aggression by men and women. However, the consequences of male-perpetrated IPV tend to be much more destructive to female victims than are the consequences of female-perpetrated IPV to male victims. In fact, almost 30% of female homicides are due to intimate partner homicide (Brewer and Paulsen 1999; Puzone et al. 2000). Conversely, intimate partner homicide accounts for only 5% of male homicide victims (Rennison 2003). Thus, both men and women are killed by their intimate partners, but intimate partner homicide is a greater threat to women than to men. Furthermore men are not crippled with fear after experiencing IPV relative to women (Rosen et al. 2005) and female-directed IPV leads to more injuries than does male-directed IPV (Crandall et al. 2004). Thus, while both men and women are violent in relationships, the...