Bidirectional Intimate Partner Violence Among Service Members and Veterans: A Scoping Review

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health challenge with disproportionately high rates among United States (U.S.) Service Members and Veterans. IPV is often conceptualized as a unidirectional phenomenon despite evidence that most IPV is bidirectional, where both members of a couple use and experience IPV. This scoping review examined the current state of the literature on bidirectional IPV among Service Members and Veterans. MEDLINE, Embase, APA PsycInfo, APA PsyArticles, APA PsycExtra, CINAHL, CENTRAL, CDSR, Academic Search Premier, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, PTSDpubs, ProQuest Dissertations & Abstracts, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched. Articles were selected based on the following inclusion criteria: (a) contains data on U.S. Service Members or Veterans over the age of 18; (b) measured IPV use (i.e., perpetration) and experience (i.e., victimization) during an overlapping period, and (c) reported bidirectional IPV at least once in either text, figures, or tables. Overall rates of bidirectional IPV across studies ( n = 21) ranged from 25% to 66.9%; rates disaggregated by subtype ranged from 1.5% (bidirectional sexual IPV) to 94% (bidirectional psychological IPV). There was considerable cross-study variation in measurement and operationalization. No studies contained data from both Service Members and Veterans in the same study. Higher rates of overall bidirectional IPV were documented among Veterans (range: 28.4%–66.9%) relative to Service Members (25%). These results highlight the need to collect data on the bidirectional IPV from Service Members and Veterans in the same study and consistent approaches to measuring and operationalizing bidirectional IPV.