Relationship status acceptance, alcohol use, and the perpetration of verbal aggression among males mandated to treatment for intimate partner violence.

Forty substance using, male offenders of intimate partner violence completed measures of alcohol use and relationship status acceptance during a pretreatment screening session. They also completed a measure of verbal aggression after each month of a 12-week intervention program. Treatment length, heavy episodic drinking, and relationship status acceptance were used to assess the frequency of verbal aggression at each of the four assessment periods in a repeated measures ANCOVA. Main effects were detected for both alcohol and acceptance variables such that greater verbal aggression was observed among participants with a recent history of heavy episodic drinking and failure to accept the status of the relationship with their female victim. The interaction between time in treatment and relationship status acceptance was significant and showed that participants who accepted their relationship status reported low verbal aggression across measurement occasions while those who did not accept their relationship status reported high initial verbal aggression that decreased over treatment.