Is Firearm Threat in Intimate Relationships Associated With Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Among Women?

• NCJ Number: 252414
• Author(s): Tami P. Sullivan, Nicole H. Weiss
• Date Published: June 2017
• Length: 6 pages
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Award: Criminal Protection Orders As A Critical Strategy To Reduce Domestic Violence: The Impact Of Orders On Victims' Well-Being, Offenders' Behavior, And Children's Contact With Offending Fathers

Annotation

The goals of the current study were (1) to document the prevalence of firearm threat in a community sample of female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), and (2) to identify the extent to which threat with a firearm, independent of other forms of IPV, is related to women's posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity.

Abstract

In the context of intimate partner violence (IPV), firearms may be used to threaten, coerce, and intimidate. Yet, what little research exists on firearms among IPV victims has focused almost exclusively on homicide or near homicide. Thus, the deleterious health consequences of firearms more broadly remain unknown. Participants in the current study were 298 women who had been a victim in a criminal domestic violence case with a male intimate partner (Mage = 36.39 years; 50.0 percent African American; 51.3 percent unemployed). Retrospective data on firearm threat, fear of firearm violence, other IPV victimization (i.e., physical, psychological, and sexual), and PTSD symptoms were collected during in-person individual interviews. Approximately one-quarter of the sample (24.2 percent) experienced threat with a firearm during the course of their relationship, and 12.5 percent were afraid that their partners would use a firearm against them in the 30 days prior to the study interview. Firearm threat and fear of firearm violence emerged as significant and unique predictors of PTSD symptom severity, controlling for age and physical, psychological, and sexual IPV victimization severity. The findings underscore firearm threat as a key factor for identifying and intervening with criminal justice involved women who experience IPV. (Publisher abstract modified)