Brief Intervention to Reduce Drinking among Batterers

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Intimate partner violence results in a wide variety of devastating consequences, including physical and mental health problems, divorce, suicide, and spousal homicide. There is substantial evidence for the association between alcohol and partner violence. Recent research has shown that violence is 8-20 times more likely to occur on a drinking day than on a non-drinking day. In populations of individuals with alcohol problems, research has shown that extended interventions specifically designed to reduce alcohol use also produce decreases in partner violence. However, research suggests that treatment for intimate partner violence is relatively ineffective, particularly among individuals who use alcohol excessively. Batterer treatment outcome research has shown that individuals with alcohol problems are 16 times more likely to recidivate to violence after the intervention than individuals without alcohol problems. To date, methods for reducing alcohol use in male batterers have not been explored, and the extent to which treatment for hazardous alcohol use will ameliorate subsequent partner violence is currently unknown. We propose to conduct a randomized clinical trial in which 326 hazardous drinking men who are arrested and court-mandated to attend batterers' intervention groups will be randomly assigned to: (a) a brief, motivationally focused alcohol intervention (adapted from the Motivational Enhancement Therapy Manual used in Project MATCH) plus standard batterers' intervention or (b) standard batterers' intervention alone. Batterers' alcohol use, problems arising from alcohol use, and partner physical and psychological aggression will be assessed at baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up. Batterers' relationship partners will be included in the study to provide corroborating reports of alcohol use and violence, and arrest records and protection orders will be obtained as further indices of violence recidivism. We hypothesize that adding a brief alcohol treatment to standard batterers' intervention will result in less alcohol use and partner violence at all follow-up assessments, relative to standard batterers' intervention alone. If it is effective, this brief alcohol treatment can be readily integrated into existing batterer intervention programs.