Differences in intimate partner violence exposure across college, crowdsourced, and at-risk samples

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive and common form of violence against women. IPV is multifaceted, with physical, sexual, and/or psychological means of perpetration, and has detrimental effects on women's mental health. IPV generally affects women; however, how IPV differentially affects different groups of women is less clear. Women who are socioeconomically vulnerable are often considered at risk for IPV, although women in college are also often the topic of IPV research due both to high rates of IPV and to ease of study recruitment. There is increasing research on the effects of IPV in a third group of women, those recruited through online platforms (i.e., crowdsourcing). How IPV differs across these three samples has yet to be examined.

In this study, we examined differences in IPV exposure across three samples of women, at risk (n = 144), college (n = 654), and crowdsourced (n = 168), using a Bayesian approach to general linear modeling.

Results indicated that the majority of women in each sample experienced some IPV. Results further suggested that women in the crowdsourced sample had the highest exposure to IPV in general and to physical IPV, sexual IPV, and IPV-related injury in particular, whereas women in the at-risk sample had the highest rates of psychological IPV.

These findings highlight the importance of sampling in studies of IPV and thus have ramifications for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).