Intimate partner violence and cognitive functioning - toward quantifying dementia risk

Intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization is highly common among women and associated with adverse health consequences that may be linked to dementia risk.

Nurses' Health Study II participants (N = 14,771) reported adult (age ≥ 18) emotional, physical, and sexual IPV in 2001/2008 and completed the Cogstate Brief Battery 2014-2019 (4/6 maximum assessments). Any versus no IPV and IPV subtypes were used to predict cognition in confounder-adjusted generalized estimating equation models weighted to account for attrition.

Mean age at baseline was 61.0 years (standard deviation = 4.6); 46.5% reported any IPV (42.3% emotional, 22.6% physical, and 11.3% sexual). IPV victimization was associated with 0.029 SD unit (95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.068, 0.009) lower global cognitive score but not rate of cognitive change. Among IPV types, emotional IPV had the strongest association (β = -0.048; 95% CI: -0.075, -0.020) with cognitive scores.

Gendered social experiences such as IPV may influence dementia risk. Further assessment of IPV in aging cohorts is needed.

IPV predicted lower average cognitive score over follow-up. Emotional abuse had the largest associations with cognitive score among subtypes. We found no differences in rate of cognitive score change by violence exposure. Even modest impacts of violence would translate to large population effects. Gendered experiences warrant additional research in understanding dementia risk.