Heterogeneity across idiographic network associations among emotion dysregulation, alcohol use, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and intimate partner violence

Nearly half of women in the United States experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, which is linked to deleterious sequelae related to health outcomes. To better understand these dynamic processes, the current study used secondary data from a 30-day experience sampling methods (ESM) study to examine associations among IPV experiences, posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), alcohol use, and emotion dysregulation. Participants were women over 18 years of age who experienced physical or sexual victimization in the past 6 months. Group iterative multiple model estimation (GIMME) was used to generate idiographic networks for each individual, followed by unsupervised subgroup classification to examine patterns of results across people. The results indicated great heterogeneity among networks. No overall group-level paths emerged, but seven small subgroups emerged, and 30.6% of the sample did not fit into any subgroup. All networks had significant autoregressions, suggesting that associations between IPV, PTSS, emotion dysregulation, and alcohol use are variable and highly specific to the individual. Notably, across findings, most associations emerged at the contemporaneous level, with few lagged effects. The complexity of the findings suggests that substantial heterogeneity exists in the dynamic associations among these processes. Personally tailored approaches may be more effective than one-size-fits-all approaches for assessing and intervening on IPV and related mental health concerns.