Domestic violence among adult male victims in non-intimate relationships: a text mining study using NSW police narratives

Background settingDomestic violence (DV) perpetrated against male victims has received little attention in the literature, since men are generally the perpetrators rather than victims of DV. This study examines the characteristics of adult male victims and female Persons of Interest (POIs) suspected and/or charged with perpetrating a DV offence in an intimate relationship.MethodsWe analyzed the results from a text mining study on half a million (492,393) police-attended DV events from 2005 to 2016 in New South Wales (Australia). 7.3% (13,896) events involving an adult male victim and a female POI in an intimate relationship were included.ResultsOver three-quarters (77.5%; 10,775) of DV events had at least one abuse type recorded, with the most common being “unspecified assault” (57.3%), followed by verbal abuse (34.1%), and punching (29.1%). Half of events (51.2%; 7,128) had an injury recorded by the police, with “cut/abrasion(s)” the most common (41.6%), followed by “red mark/sign” (25.4%), and “bruising” (15.8%). A total of 2,196 (15.8%) DV events had a mention of a mental illness for the POIs and 570 (4.1%) for the victims. Mood disorders had the most mentions for both POIs (37.0%) and victims (32.8%). Among victims, anxiety related disorders saw the largest increase (14.0%) in mentions from 2005 to 2016, followed by depression (8.0%).ConclusionOur findings represent population level data insights from DV events involving an adult male victim in an intimate relationship with a female POI. Our findings align with existing studies suggesting that female POIs are more likely than male POIs to use objects/weapons, employ verbal abuse, and perform minor acts of physical violence. Female POIs had 4 times the number of mental illness mentions than male victims indicating that mental illness could be a risk factor for DV, while the increase in anxiety disorders and depression for male victims corresponds with research that associates mental illnesses and DV victimhood. This study highlights the need for a greater awareness and support for male victims of DV.

In Australia, domestic violence reports are mostly based on data from the police, courts, hospitals, and ad hoc surveys. However, gaps exist in reporting information such as victim injuries, mental health status and abuse types. The police record details of domestic violence events as structured information (e.g., gender, postcode, ethnicity), but also in text narratives describing other details such as injuries, substance use, and mental health status. However, the voluminous nature of the narratives has prevented their use for surveillance purposes. We used a validated text mining methodology on 492,393 police-attended domestic violence event narratives from 2005 to 2016 to extract mental health mentions on persons of interest (POIs) (individuals suspected/charged with a domestic violence offense) and victims, abuse types, and victim injuries. A significant increase was observed in events that recorded an injury type (28.3% in 2005 to 35.6% in 2016). The pattern of injury and abuse types differed between male and female victims with male victims more likely to be punched and to experience cuts and bleeding and female victims more likely to be grabbed and pushed and have bruises. The four most common mental illnesses (alcohol abuse, bipolar disorder, depression schizophrenia) were the same in male and female POIs. An increase from 5.0% in 2005 to 24.3% in 2016 was observed in the proportion of events with a reported mental illness with an increase between 2005 and 2016 in depression among female victims. These findings demonstrate that extracting information from police narratives can provide novel insights into domestic violence patterns including confounding factors (e.g., mental illness) and thus enable policy responses to address this significant public health problem.

The burden of sexual violence has been well described in children of both sexes and in women, but there is minimal literature on adult male rape victims. Studies of adult male rape victims have mainly been conducted among incarcerated males or military personnel, and in high-income countries. To describe the epidemiology, occurrence and reporting of rape cases involving male victims, both child (<18 years old) and adult, in South Africa (SA). The study consisted of a nationally representative sample of case dockets maintained by the SA Police Service of rape incidents reported in 2012. A retrospective review of the dockets provided sociodemographic information on the victim and suspect, the circumstances of the rape and the medicolegal services provided to the victim. Data on male victims were analysed using Stata 13 to test for significant differences between child and adult male victims. The study comprised 209 male victims, including 120 (57.4%) children and 89 (42.6%) adults. The findings showed that there were significant differences in the occurrence and reporting of rape of male victims by age. Adult males experienced more violent rapes, perpetrators were more likely to be armed and often humiliated the victim, and rapes were more likely to occur in institutional settings. Adult males reported incidents of rape earlier and therefore had visible non-genital injuries during the medical examination. In contrast, more child rapes involved known perpetrators, occurred in a home and perpetrators were more likely to act kindly to the victim after the incident. This parallels the patterns in rape circumstances seen in female adult and child victims. While there is political commitment to understanding sexual violence against women as a societal problem, work on such violence against men lags behind and is little understood. Rape of males needs to be acknowledged, and their vulnerabilities to sexual abuse and rape need to be addressed. Prevention efforts to end violence against women and girls, especially in relation to children, can be used to address violence against men and boys.

To the Editor: Although the long-term effects of sexual abuse of women by men have been studied extensively, there has been minimal research exploring the effects of sexual assault by men on other men. Until recently, very little attention has been paid to male victims of rape and sexual assault in adulthood; even less attention has been paid to male rape in the military. In fact, there are few studies on even the prevalence of sexual assaults of men in the US Army.1 Similar to female rape victims, adult male rape victims rarely turn to the legal, medical, or mental health systems for assistance. Personal stories of male rape mirror female rape in terms of a sense of shame, humiliation, and self-blame, but males are even less likely than females to report an assault. Four male veterans—all victims of male rape—recently presented to a Veterans Affairs (VA) outpatient clinic, providing further insight into this seldom-studied phenomenon. A common theme emerging in treating male rape victims is a lost sense of manliness. Male victims voice their concern in reconciling their masculine identity with their experience of being raped. One patient reported that he never disclosed it to his wife of 30 years; the sense of stigma from the rape was felt as huge and devastating. The veterans treated in this VA outpatient setting all reported a preference for a female psychiatrist and difficulty in discussing rape with a male psychiatrist. It is possible that male rape victims experience more negative counter-transference reactions from male psychiatrists. Male psychiatrists may not be free of homophobic reaction, which further hinders patients from articulating the history of the abuse. None of the 4 victims examined disclosed his rape to any male psychiatrist by whom he was examined. One of the male victims was labeled as “malingering” in spite of 2 severe suicide attempts. The physician became frustrated by the perceived “secretiveness” of the patient and interpreted it as malingering. While patients dread the idea of disclosing the rape to a man and fear how telling would affect them, they also complained that no male psychiatrist had asked them about a possible abuse history. Treatment of rape victims should start with an exploration of our own beliefs about male rape. Training in this specific area is needed for psychiatric residents as well as for military personnel, the police, emergency department staff, nurses, and general practitioners. The research on sexual assault of women may not be appropriate for men who have been sexually assaulted. Applying research findings from female victims to male victims may lead to damaging behaviors that are harmful to male rape survivors following the assault and in the long term. Furthermore, it should be explored further if the gender of the listener has a role in the underreporting of male sexual violence. This can help identify the number of male victims of sexual assault, which may allow planning of appropriate clinical services and counseling strategies that may support recovery.

This study aimed to examine the effects of different types of maltreatment on psychiatric outcomes. The second aim was to examine patterns of comorbidity among different types of child maltreatment. Participants were randomly selected from the total birth cohort of all children born in Denmark in 1984. Data were then linked to information drawn from the Danish health and social registries. Four distinct subgroups of child maltreatment were used: no abuse; sexual abuse; emotional abuse; and co‐occurring abuse. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that all types of maltreatment were associated with psychiatric outcomes independent of other forms of adversity and parental history of psychiatric conditions. The strength of these associations was consistent for some, but not all conditions. Findings are consistent with emerging transdiagnostic models of psychopathology, which demonstrate that the risk for psychopathology appears to operate at the broad dimension level, rather than the level of specific diagnoses.Key Practitioner Messages This study found that maltreatment in childhood was associated with a number of psychiatric conditions and high levels of comorbidity independent of other forms of adversity and parental history of psychiatric conditions. Findings point to the importance of early intervention for maltreated children using an individual and developmentally appropriate approach that may offset the risk trajectory for co‐occurring psychiatric conditions. Interventions targeting difficulties in attachment, emotional regulation and promoting adaptive coping strategies have been useful in treating a range of conditions.

Background and Objectives: Elder abuse is a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to an older person. Around 1 in 6 elders experience some form of abuse worldwide causing bad impact on health as well as quality life of elders. Most of the studies indicate that elder people are suffered from different types of abuse which include: neglect (isolation, abandonment and social exclusion), violation (of human, legal and medical rights), and deprivation (of choices, decisions, status, finances and respect). Thus, this research was carried out to identify the prevalence of elderly abuse and its associated factors among elderly people. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross sectional research design was adopted in total 60 samples who were selected by non probability purposive sampling technique. Data was collected through door to door survey using face to face interview schedule using Geriatric Mistreatment Scale (GMS). The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics such as Chi-square test by using Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) 16th version. Results: The present study findings revealed that prevalence of elderly abuse was 35%. Among different types of elderly abuse, most of the respondents had faced psychological abuse (38.3%), neglect was faced by 20% of the respondents and 20% had to face financial abuse. Minority (5%) had faced physical abuse and none of the respondents had faced sexual abuse. Overall, 35% of the respondents had faced any form of the elderly abuse. The prevalence of elderly abuse had statistically significant association with living arrangement of elderly people and future saving as p-value was 0.045 and 0.023 respectively. Conclusion: The study was concluded that elderly abuse is prevalent in community of Kathmandu. Therefore, the elders are at risk of getting victim of elderly abuse, so effective screening and awareness regarding prevention of elderly abuse is very essential.

The police are often the first to attend domestic violence events in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, recording related details as structured information (e.g., date of the event, type of incident, premises type) and text narratives which contain important information (e.g., mental health status, abuse types) for victims and perpetrators. This study examined the characteristics of victims and persons of interest (POIs) suspected and/or charged with perpetrating a domestic violence-related crime in residential care facilities. The study employed a text mining method that extracted key information from 700 police-recorded domestic violence events in NSW residential care facilities. Victims were mostly female (65.4%) and older adults (median age 80.3). POIs were predominantly male (67.0%) and were younger than the victims (median age 57.0). While low rates of mental illnesses were recorded (29.1% in victims; 17.4% in POIs), "dementia" was the most common condition among POIs (55.7%) and victims (73.0%). "Physical abuse" was the most common abuse type (80.2%) with "bruising" the most common injury (36.8%). The most common relationship between perpetrator and victim was "carer" (76.6%). These findings highlight the opportunity provided by police text-based data to offer insights into elder abuse within residential care facilities.

The purpose of the present study was to identify the long-term impacts of different types of child abuse and to assess differential effects of single versus multi-type maltreatment. Three hundred and eighty-four college students completed measures of child abuse history (neglect, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse), depression, suicidality, self-esteem, sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use, and delinquent behavior. The results demonstrate the high rates of co-occurrence of different types of abuse, with few differential effects identified. Rather, all types of abuse were associated with symptoms. Experiencing multiple types of abuse was associated with greater symptoms than experiencing no abuse or a single type of abuse. The results highlight the importance of considering all types of abuse when studying child maltreatment.

According to the gender stereotypes attributed to men, and research on adult male victims, boys subjected to sexual abuse are expected to be better able to defend themselves than girls, and are thought to be more likely to adopt a proactive attitude in the victim–perpetrator relationship. They are consequently regarded as more blameworthy than female victims. In the present study, 384 French respondents read through a sexual abuse scenario in which the child victim's gender, perpetrator's gender and victim's age (7 vs. 12 years old) were manipulated. As expected, male respondents blamed the victim more than female respondents did, especially when the victim was a boy. Furthermore, male respondents blamed the perpetrator less than female respondents did, especially when the perpetrator was a woman and the victim a boy. However, these effects were observed for victims of both 7 and 12 years old while it was expected only for the 12-year-old victims. Finally, as expected, respondents who expressed a high need for closure perceived the victim as less credible and more guilty than respondents who expressed a low need for closure, particularly when the victim was 12 years old. This cognitive characteristic thus appears to moderate the expression of stereotypical representations.

Pre-pregnancy obesity and postpartum mental disorders are prevalent health risks to both the mother and the offspring. The objective of our study was to examine whether a history of childhood maltreatment is associated with pre-pregnancy obesity and postpartum mental health and whether childhood maltreatment and pre-pregnancy BMI independently predict postpartum mental health. We obtained self-reported data from 741 postpartum women before 16 weeks after delivery (M = 8.1 weeks, SD = 3.2). Childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and physical and emotional neglect were assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Depression and anxiety were assessed using the BDI and SCL-90-R. We conducted logistic regression models adjusted for demographic covariates and co-occurrence of different types of maltreatment. 7.6% of the included women entered pregnancy with obesity. Forty-six percent reported any type of childhood maltreatment. 6.4% displayed at least moderate postnatal depressive symptomatology and 20.5% scored above the 75th percentile for postpartum anxiety. Severe physical abuse, moderate emotional abuse and severe physical and emotional neglect were associated with pre-pregnancy obesity. After controlling for the presence of all other types of childhood maltreatment, only severe physical abuse was still predictive for pre-pregnancy obesity (adj.OR = 5.24, 95% CI = 1.15-23.75). Pre-pregnancy obesity was associated with an increased risk of postpartum depression (adj.OR = 2.55, 95% CI = 1.08-6.00) but not with elevated anxiety. Pre-pregnancy obesity and severe childhood sexual abuse independently predicted postpartum depression. After controlling for histories of different types of childhood maltreatment, the association between pre-pregnancy obesity and postpartum depression attenuated to non-significance. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining empirical relations between childhood maltreatment, pre-pregnancy BMI and postpartum mental health controlling for the co-occurrence of other maltreatment types. Childhood maltreatment has been found being associated with both pre-pregnancy obesity and impaired postpartum mental health and may at least partly account for the association between pre-pregnancy obesity and postpartum depression. Therefore childhood maltreatment is related to two common risk conditions during pregnancy and postpartum which bear several health risks for the mother and the child, and routine screening for histories of childhood maltreatment among pregnant women is warranted.

Childhood maltreatment and risk of intimate partner violence: A national study

BackgroundTo better understand domestic violence, data sources from multiple sectors such as police, justice, health, and welfare are needed. Linking police data to data collections from other agencies could provide unique insights and promote an all-of-government response to domestic violence. The New South Wales Police Force attends domestic violence events and records information in the form of both structured data and a free-text narrative, with the latter shown to be a rich source of information on the mental health status of persons of interest (POIs) and victims, abuse types, and sustained injuries.ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the concordance (ie, matching) between mental illness mentions extracted from the police’s event narratives and mental health diagnoses from hospital and emergency department records.MethodsWe applied a rule-based text mining method on 416,441 domestic violence police event narratives between December 2005 and January 2016 to identify mental illness mentions for POIs and victims. Using different window periods (1, 3, 6, and 12 months) before and after a domestic violence event, we linked the extracted mental illness mentions of victims and POIs to clinical records from the Emergency Department Data Collection and the Admitted Patient Data Collection in New South Wales, Australia using a unique identifier for each individual in the same cohort.ResultsUsing a 2-year window period (ie, 12 months before and after the domestic violence event), less than 1% (3020/416,441, 0.73%) of events had a mental illness mention and also a corresponding hospital record. About 16% of domestic violence events for both POIs (382/2395, 15.95%) and victims (101/631, 16.01%) had an agreement between hospital records and police narrative mentions of mental illness. A total of 51,025/416,441 (12.25%) events for POIs and 14,802/416,441 (3.55%) events for victims had mental illness mentions in their narratives but no hospital record. Only 841 events for POIs and 919 events for victims had a documented hospital record within 48 hours of the domestic violence event.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that current surveillance systems used to report on domestic violence may be enhanced by accessing rich information (ie, mental illness) contained in police text narratives, made available for both POIs and victims through the application of text mining. Additional insights can be gained by linkage to other health and welfare data collections.

Stigmas and taboos surrounding male sexual violence, stating that men cannot be sexually victimized and would not experience many adverse effects as a result, continue to shroud the issue of male sexual victimization (SV). Male victims, therefore, remain under-recognized in research, policy, and treatment provisions. Furthermore, knowledge regarding male SV is severely compromised by studying male victims in convenience samples with a focus on hands-on forms of sexual violence. Finally, severity of SV is often described using a one-dimensional approach based on presumed severity leading to an oversimplified image. This study addresses these various gaps in scientific research by constructing severity profiles of male SV based on self-reported consequences, prevalence, and co-occurrence of SV. A total of 1,078 male victims were selected from a Belgian nationally representative sample collected between October 2019 and January 2021. Profiles are constructed using latent class analysis. Sociodemographic differences across the profiles are examined through multinomial regression analysis. Finally, differences in current mental health problems across the profiles are assessed. Four distinct male victim profiles are identified: (a) low severity-low victimization (58.3%), (b) medium severity-hands-off victimization (21.4%), (c) medium severity-poly-victimization (13.3%), and (d) high severity-poly-victimization (7.0%). Group comparisons show how male victims in the high-severity class report significantly higher rates of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicide and/or self-harm. Significant differences in class membership were found for age, occupational status, relationship status, sexual orientation, and financial status. This study provides new insights in the patterns of male SV and highlights the presence of poly-victimization among male victims. Additionally, we point out how the so-called minor forms of SV (i.e., hands-off SV) can have a large effect on male victims. The study ends with suggestions for care and future research.

This study investigated (a) whether childhood sexual abuse (CSA) was uniquely associated with adult sexual risk behavior, after controlling for other types of childhood maltreatment and (b) whether there were additive or interactive effects of different types of maltreatment on adult sexual risk behavior. Participants were 414 women (M age = 28 years) attending a publicly funded STD clinic. All women completed a computerized survey assessing childhood maltreatment (sexual, physical, psychological abuse, and neglect) and sexual risk behavior. Analyses showed that sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect were associated with adult sexual risk behavior. Multivariate analyses that controlled for all other forms of child maltreatment showed that only CSA was uniquely associated with adult sexual risk behavior (i.e., percentage of episodes of unprotected sex in the past 3 months and number of lifetime partners). The authors found little support for an additive or an interactive model of the effects of different types of childhood maltreatment on adult sexual risk behavior; CSA alone was the best predictor of adult sexual risk behavior. Sexual risk reduction interventions are needed for women who were sexually abused as children. Continued research on the effects of multitype maltreatment on adult sexual risk behavior is needed.

Safeguarding Children and Young People During the COVID‐19 Pandemic