Improved Relationship Quality, Equitable Gender Attitudes, and Reduced Alcohol Abuse as Key Mechanisms to Reduce Intimate Partner Violence in the Bandebereho Couples’ Randomized Trial in Rwanda

Over the past decade, there has been rapid growth in the evidence for programs to prevent or reduce intimate partner violence (IPV)–the most common form of men’s violence against women. IPV interventions targeting heterosexual couples have shown significant impact. However, our understanding of how...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Prevention science Vol. 23; no. 8; pp. 1495 - 1506
Main Authors:	Levtov, Ruti G., Doyle, Kate, Bingenheimer, Jeffrey B., Lahiri, Shaon, Kazimbaya, Shamsi, Karamage, Emmanuel, Sayinzoga, Felix, Mutoni, Merab, Rubayita, Claude Hodari, Barker, Gary
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	New York Springer US 01-11-2022 Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:	Alcohol abuse Alcohol use Attitudes Child and School Psychology Clinical trials Closeness Communication Couples Domestic violence Gender Gender differences Gender relations Gender-based violence Health Psychology Heterosexuality Holistic approach Interpersonal relations Intervention Intimate partner violence Medicine Medicine & Public Health Men Public Health Quality Structural equation modeling Structural models Variables Violence against women Rwanda Prevention Male engagement Couples Randomized controlled trial Gender-transformative Intimate partner violence
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Summary:	Over the past decade, there has been rapid growth in the evidence for programs to prevent or reduce intimate partner violence (IPV)–the most common form of men’s violence against women. IPV interventions targeting heterosexual couples have shown significant impact. However, our understanding of how these interventions achieve their impacts on violence–the mechanisms through which change occurs–remains limited. Using data from two follow-up rounds of a randomized controlled trial of the Bandebereho intervention in Rwanda, we constructed conceptually driven structural equation models to represent the processes by which hypothesized mediating variables linked treatment assignment to IPV. We found significant differences in the expected direction between the intervention and control participants on all mediating variables, including men’s alcohol use, communication frequency, emotional closeness, frequency of quarreling, and men’s attitudes related to gender and violence. Several mechanisms–more positive couple dynamics including emotional closeness and communication frequency; men’s gender-equitable attitudes; men’s alcohol use–accounted for the largest proportions of the effect of assignment to the Bandebereho intervention on IPV. Overall, our findings highlight that no one particular component is driving the reductions in violence; instead, the multiple components and pathways account for the intervention’s effects, suggesting that the holistic nature of the intervention may be integral to its positive impact. The Bandebereho trial from which data was used in this analysis was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov prior to completion ( NCT02694627 ).
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 ObjectType-News-3 content type line 23
ISSN:	1389-4986 1573-6695
DOI:	10.1007/s11121-022-01445-6