title: Partner violence before and after individually based alcoholism treatment for male alcoholic patients.
abstract: This study examined partner violence in the year before and the year after individually based, outpatient alcoholism treatment for 301 married or cohabiting male alcoholic patients and used a demographically matched nonalcoholic comparison sample. In the year before treatment, 56% of the alcoholic patients had been violent toward their female partner, 4 times the rate of 14% in the comparison sample. In the year after treatment, violence decreased significantly to 25% of the alcoholic sample but remained higher than in the comparison group. Among remitted alcoholics after treatment, violence prevalence of 15% was nearly identical to the comparison sample and half the rate among relapsed patients (32%). Thus, partner violence decreased after alcoholism treatment, and clinically significant violence reductions occurred for patients whose alcoholism was remitted after treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and VA Boston Healthcare System, Brockton, Massachusetts 02301, USA. timothy_ofarrell@hms.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: O'Farrell
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fals-Stewart
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: Christopher M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy*; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D013179:Spouse Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000628:therapy*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors