Abstract
Current research suggests that a husband's substance abuse is correlated with severity of physical abuse and the woman's decision to leave a violent situation. Often, only the battered woman's report of abuse is available. This study compares women's reports of their partners' substance use/abuse with their partners' report using a brief measure of polydrug and alcohol abuse, the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) and the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Data were analyzed for 25 recovery couples and 25 nonrecovery couples. The correlations for all 50 couples between the male's reported use and the female's report of her partner's use on the SASSI and the CTS were significant on all but one of the CTS scales. They ranged on SASSI from .73 to .33 and from .31 to .06 on the CTS. This suggests that the SASSI and possibly the CTS could be used as valuable tools for assessing women's reports of their partner's substance use/abuse.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Black, C. (1982). It Will Never Happen To Me, M.A.C. Printing and Publication Division, Denver.
Dobash, R. P., Dobash, R. E., Wilson, M., and Daly, M. (1992). The myth of sexual symmetry in marital violence. Social Probl. 39: 71–79.
Edleson, J. L., and Brygger, M. P. (1988). Gender differences in reporting of battery incidences. Fam. Relat. J. Appl. Fam. Child Studies 35: 377–382.
Gelles, R. J. (1974). The Violent Home: A Study of Physical Aggression Between Husbands and Wives, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills.
Hofeller, K. H. (1982). Social, Psychological and Situational Factors in Wife Abuse R. E. Research Associates, Inc., Palo Alto.
Indiana Division of Addiction Services, Predicting the Degree of Risk of Abusing Alcohol and Other Drugs: The Risk Prediction Scales, State of Indiana, Department of Mental Health (internal publication), 1978.
Kantor, G. K., and Straus, M. A. (1987). The “drunken bum” theory of wife beating. Social Problems, 34: 213–230. (From Psychlit Abstracts, 1987, Abstract No. 75-26832).
Kantor, G. K., and Straus, M. A. (1989). Substance abuse as a Precipitant of Wife abuse Victimizations. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 15: 173–189.
Kurtz, D. S. (1992). Alcohol abuse as a predictor and correlate of domestic violence, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles.
Miller, G. A. (1985). The Substance Abuse Screening Inventory, SASSI, Addiction Research and Consultation, Indiana.
Roberts, R. R. (1987). Psychosocial characteristics of batterers: A study of 234 men charged with domestic violence offenses. J. Fam. Violence, 2: 81–93.
Roy, M. K. (1977). A research project probing a cross-section of battered women. In Roy, M. K. (ed.), Battered Women: A Psychosocial Study of Domestic Violence, Van Nostrand, New York.
Skinner, H. A. (1982). Alcohol dependence syndrome: Measurement and validation. J. Abnorm. Psychol. 91: 199–209.
Straus, M. A. (1979). Intrafamily conflict and violence: The Conflicts Tactics Scale. J. Marr. Fam. 41: 75–88.
Straus, M. A. (1987). The conflict tactics scales: An evaluation and new data on validity, reliability, norms, and scoring methods, Paper presented at the 1987 meeting of the National Council on Family Relations, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.
Van Hasselt, V. B., Morrison, R. L., and Bellack, A. S. (1985). Alcohol use in wife abusers and their spouses. Addict. Behav. 10: 127–135.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lindquist, C.U., Sass, L.E., Bottomley, D. et al. Should Abused Women's Reports of Partner Substance Abuse Be Accepted as Valid?. Journal of Family Violence 12, 75–83 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021997901081
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021997901081