Long-Term Treatment Outcome and Recidivism Patterns Among Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrator Typology: A 15-Year Follow-Up Study

Current studies on intimate partner violence (IPV) conclude that IPV perpetrators are a heterogeneous group, with substantially different profiles and different relevant clinical variables, with a differential response to the psychological treatment programmes that they take part in, measured through criminal recidivism. However, most studies look only at these offenders' short-term recidivism. The aim of this longitudinal study was, on the one hand, to replicate a typology based on the risk of recidivism in a sample of 484 court-referred partner-violent men and, on the other hand, to analyse long-term criminal recidivism in these aggressors, depending on the typology found. For this purpose, a 15-year longitudinal follow-up was conducted on 484 court-referred partner-violent men after they had participated in a cognitive-behavioural psychological treatment programme. The results corroborated the existence of three subtypes of aggressors: those with high risk, medium risk and low risk, as well as different patterns of recidivism depending on the profile identified at the beginning of the treatment. It was concluded that recidivism was higher in the first year of follow-up, as well as the fact that the aggressors at greatest risk were the subgroup with the highest level of long-term recidivism. These results highlight the heterogeneity existing in this type of aggressor, as well as the need to adapt psychological treatment programmes in line with the initial characteristics of the participants.