Childhood Histories of Family Violence and Adult Intimate Partner Violence Use Among U.S. Military Veterans

There is ample evidence for associations among childhood family violence and adult intimate partner violence (IPV) use. This study was designed to examine potential differential associations between childhood physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse, witnessing parental IPV, posttraumatic stress symptom (PTSS) severity, and IPV use for men and women veterans.

Survey data from 825 veterans who participated in a longitudinal multisite investigation of post-9/11 veterans who completed measures of childhood family violence history, PTSS, IPV use and experiences were used. Moderation analysis in hierarchical linear regression tested whether men veterans with childhood family violence had higher rates of IPV use than women veterans. A gender-stratified causal mediation was conducted to test whether PTSS severity mediated the relationships among childhood family violence types and IPV use for men and women.

Women veterans reported significantly higher rates of all forms of childhood family violence than men, but there were no significant gender differences in rates of reported IPV use. PTSS severity did not mediate the association between childhood family violence types and adult IPV use for men or women. For men PTSS severity was the only factor significantly positively associated with IPV use. Childhood sexual abuse was the only factor significantly positively associated with IPV use for women.

These differential findings for men and women veterans support screening and intervention based on gender for veterans accessing VA healthcare and the need for interventions that address childhood trauma, PTSS and IPV within the VA healthcare system.