Short-Term Interventions for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background/Purpose:

Intimate partner violence (IPV) annually impacts millions of adults and children and can result in homicide, legal proceedings, child welfare involvement, family disruption, and emergency shelter for survivors and their families. Survivors of IPV trauma often develop psychological and somatic symptoms, including anxiety and depression. Further, survivors often experience concerns about safety, financial strain, and social challenges. Short-term interventions are needed to address such issues. The present systematic review and meta-analysis sought to identify and describe what short-term psychotherapy interventions have been delivered to IPV survivors and the effectiveness of such interventions.

Method:

PRISMA guidelines were followed. Peer-reviewed and dissertations were included if a psychotherapy intervention designed to help IPV survivors was provided and supplied enough quantitative data to compute an effect size. To avoid introducing systematic error, only studies that could be identified and secured through electronic databases or the reference lists of identified studies were included. Single case studies and those with less than 5 participants were excluded

Results:

In total, 21 articles reported data that allowed for effect size calculation. Of these, two involved multiple comparisons of a treatment group. The omnibus effect size was in the large range, Hedge’s g = 1.02. Moderator effects were examined. Short-term interventions were highly effective in reducing PTSD symptoms (g = 1.26), improving self-esteem (g = 1.16), and decreasing negative emotions such as depression and distress (g = 0.95 and 0.84, respectively). The interventions were moderately effective in reducing substance abuse and actual IPV (g = 0.44 and 0.35, respectively). Of the many interventions that were delivered, those that were CBT-based and were specifically designed to work with the challenges of IPV were significantly better than all other interventions (g = 2.04 and 0.84, respectively; Qb = 5.81, p < .001). Said differently, the tailored interventions showed an approximate advantage of 69% where as those that were not tailored showed about a 29% advantage. Further, individually delivered interventions significantly out-performed group delivered treatments (g = 1.21 and 0.84, respectively; p < .001). Other findings suggested that the effects do attenuate over time and more treatment is associated with stronger outcomes. Where services were delivered (e.g., in a shelter or clinic) did not matter.

Implications:

IPV survivors do benefit from short-term psychotherapies. Our results suggest that interventions designed to respond to the unique needs of IPV survivors are much more likely to produce strong effects and more time in treatment is better. Further, individual delivery is superior to group delivered interventions. Thus, while all interventions produced desired outcomes, certain designs and delivery types are likely to produce better outcomes though these designs would likely require more resources at the point of delivery. The relative small number of studies that met our inclusion criteria suggests caution in making firm interpretations, yet some guidance for decision-making is possible.