Intimate partner violence, traumatic brain injury and long-term mental health outcomes in midlife: the Drake IPV study.

BACKGROUND

Approximately 30% of women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, often with traumatic brain injury (TBI) exposure. Nevertheless, there has been limited research exploring lifelong brain health outcomes following IPV with TBI. To address this, we investigated the relationship between IPV, TBI and midlife mental health outcomes within an observational cohort study.

METHODS

PREVENT Dementia is a cohort study with participants recruited aged 40-59 years for longitudinal measures of brain health. Participants reporting histories of IPV-related physical abuse (IPV-PA) at study recruitment were identified and compared with control participants with no IPV-PA exposure regarding histories of TBI and prevalence of lifetime and ongoing mental health outcomes using standardised assessments.

RESULTS

Among 632 participants, 90 (14%) reported IPV-PA history. Compared with unexposed participants, history of IPV-PA was associated with higher TBI exposure, together with higher lifetime and ongoing diagnoses of depression, anxiety and sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology. Notably, the risk of ongoing and concurrent midlife mental health disorders remained despite IPV-PA exposure having ceased on average 27 years before assessment. History of TBI in individuals with IPV was associated with increased risk of ongoing PTSD symptomology and concurrent mental health outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data confirm high TBI exposure among individuals with a history of IPV-PA, while also demonstrating that this population shows higher rates of ongoing adverse mental health outcomes in midlife, often decades after abuse. This work underlines the prevalence of IPV-PA and the necessity to consider TBI exposure and long-term brain health outcomes among this population.