Abstract
BackgroundViolence against intimate partners is a worldwide public health problem. Cognitive behavioural therapy delivered in a group format is widely used for the treatment of men’s violent behaviour towards their female partners. A Cochrane review about the effectiveness of this therapy from 2011 revealed a lack of controlled studies. Our aim is to update the current evidence on the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural group therapy on men’s violent behaviour towards their female partner.MethodsThe Cochrane Library, the Campbell Collaboration Social, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, SCOPUS, Embase, Open Grey, Grey Literature Report, and Sociological s were searched for studies investigating the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural group therapy on intimate partner violence published in the period of January 1, 2010, to February 12, 2018. Manual searches were also performed to identify randomized and non-randomized controlled trials. Data extraction was done in duplicate. The primary outcome was the reduction in violent behaviour, and secondary outcomes were physical health, mental health, quality of life, emotion regulation, and substance use. Study quality was assessed with the Cochrane Collaboration’s risk of bias tool and the Risk of Bias In Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions tool. A narrative summary was used to describe the review findings.ResultsWe identified six new studies that met the inclusion criteria: four randomized controlled trials and two non-randomized trials. Three of the randomized controlled trials found a reduction in intimate partner violence after treatment. The fourth randomized trial found that a subsample of responding partners reported a reduction in violence but no changes in the men’s self-reported violence after treatment. No effect could be detected in the two non-randomized studies. Analysis of risk of bias revealed mixed results, indicating both strengths and weaknesses.LimitationsOnly a limited amount of studies which scored as “low quality” were available.ConclusionsThere is still insufficient evidence to confirm that cognitive behavioural group therapy for perpetrators of intimate partner violence has a positive effect. Future research should focus on randomized controlled studies distinguishing between convicted and non-convicted populations where violent behaviour is the primary outcome.Trial registrationCRD42016041493.
Highlights
Violence against intimate partners is a worldwide public health problem
Search results The database searches yielded 4570 unique references [29]
Hand searching of the bibliographies of the systematic reviews and articles selected for the full text review revealed one additional study with potential relevance [30]
Summary
Violence against intimate partners is a worldwide public health problem. Cognitive behavioural therapy delivered in a group format is widely used for the treatment of men’s violent behaviour towards their female partners. Our aim is to update the current evidence on the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural group therapy on men’s violent behaviour towards their female partner. Violence against women is a global public health problem and studies on intimate partner violence suggest that nearly one third of women experience physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner during their lifetime [8]. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is one of the most actively researched psychotherapies and has received consistent empirical support for a host of mental health problems and conditions [12, 13]. Different psychopathological conditions are associated with specific biases that influence how an individual incorporates and responds to new information [12, 13]
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