Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. We examined whether frequent drug use increases the likelihood of subsequent sexual or physical intimate partner violence IPV and whether IPV increases the likelihood of subsequent frequent drug use. A random sample of women on methadone was assessed at baseline wave 1 and at 6 months wave 2 , and 12 months wave 3 following the initial assessment. Propensity score matching and multiple logistic regression were employed.
Our findings suggest that the relationship between frequent drug use and IPV is bidirectional and varies by type of drug. Over the past decade, intimate partner violence IPV has emerged as a significant public health problem among women in drug treatment. Does experiencing IPV lead to an increase in drug use? Or is there a reciprocal relationship between IPV and drug use?
The first possibility considered, that drug use leads to IPV, can be explained by several overlapping psychopharmacological, economic, and gender-related power factors.
Psychopharmacological explanations focus on how drug use induces cognitive disruption and impairs the ability to process social interactions for the perpetrator and victim of IPV.
IPV occurs as an extension of the unequal distribution of power, social status, labor, and drugs between intimate partners. The second possibility considered, that IPV leads to the use of illicit drugs, is supported by qualitative studies documenting that women initiate or increase their illicit drug use to cope with the pain of experiencing IPV. The third alternative causal explanation posits a reciprocal relationship between IPV and drug abuse: drug abuse increases IPV, and IPV also increases the likelihood of drug abuse.
