Intimate Partner Violence and Diurnal Cortisol Patterns in Couples

Introduction: Romantic relationships have long been implicated in individuals’ physical and psychological well-being. In particular, psychological and physical intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to a host of physical and mental health consequences for individuals.  Growing evidence suggests that such negative health outcomes may be due to dysregulation of stress-linked endocrine processes, specifically alterations in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity. However, most of the existing studies on the association between IPV and HPA axis activity relied on women victims from shelters. Using multivariate hierarchical modeling, the present study examined whether dyadic levels of psychological and physical IPV were significantly related to men’s and women’s diurnal patterns of salivary cortisol, focusing on gender differences among community couples with at-risk backgrounds.

Method: Data from 122 couples (mean age of the men and women = 36 and 34 yrs old, respectively) from a larger longitudinal study of at-risk community couples were used for the present study. Both partners completed the Conflict Tactics Scale-revised (CTS2) and daily salivary cortisol sample collections (four saliva samples per day across four consecutive work days). The average length of the relationship was approximately 9 years and the majority of them were either married or cohabiting (86%).

Results:Dyadic physical IPV was related to men’s midday cortisol levels only but this effect became insignificant when dyadic relationship satisfaction and other contextual factors (e.g., number of children) were controlled for in the model. On the other hand, women with higher levels of dyadic physical IPV showed higher midday levels, less linear decline at midday and more blunted diurnal cortisol patterns across the day compared to women with lower levels of dyadic physical IPV, even in the presence of other control variables. Dyadic psychological IPV was not related to either men’s or women’s diurnal cortisol levels.

Conclusions: Findings support the hypothesized association between physical IPV and HPA axis activity, especially for women. This suggests that dysregulated stress-linked endocrine processes may be an important underlying mechanism that links IPV and negative health consequences. Findings from the present study may also help explain gender differences in health outcomes in response to IPV.