One in Five U.S. Men Report Violence Toward Intimate Partner

A recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that one in five men resort to intimate partner violence at some point.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is highlighted as a serious, preventable public health concern that currently affects millions of Americans. IPV is the threatened, attempted or complete physical or sexual violence by current or former intimate partner. The current study findings are based on the analysis of the data retrieved from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication from 2001-2003. 

"When people think of men who abuse their partners, they often think of violent people who they have never come across, or people they have only heard about in the news," said lead author Vijay Singh, M.D., MPH, MS, a clinical lecturer in the Departments of Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

The researchers assessed the intimate partner violence and characteristics among male perpetrators. They focused on a sample of 530 men with an average age of 42 years. Nearly 78 percent were non-Hispanic white, 56 of them had education beyond high school and 84 percent of them were employed.  

The researchers found that male aggression towards their partner was linked with certain signs that appeared during health visits and this included irritable bowel syndrome and insomnia. They also noticed that 1 in 5 men reported physical violence towards partners that included pushing, biting, beating, choking, burning or scalding, or threatening with knife or gun.

The study shows that each year in the United States, 320,000 outpatient health visits and 1,200 deaths occur among women due to domestic violence.

"Most of our efforts to prevent intimate partner violence have focused on screening and improving outcomes for women who are victims, because their health and well-being is our priority. Very little work, however, has been done on how to identify male perpetrators," said Singh, who is also a member of the University of Michigan Injury Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

The finding appears in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.