Maintaining relationship safety while promoting relationship health: Family service referrals among veterans screened for intimate partner violence.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) poses a tremendous public health burden across large health care systems. While the predominant response to IPV focuses on individual screening and referral, relationship and family services provide an opportunity to prevent low-risk verbal aggression from escalating and to address some forms of bidirectional physical IPV. This study examines mental health and screening variables associated with IPV experience and subsequent referral to family services using a large national data set of = 256,894 patients screened for IPV in the first year of the Veterans Health Administration's adoption of a national IPV screen.

'I just feel so unloved': using grounded theory to explore adult children's experiences of unresponsiveness from their parents living with dementia.

Objectives: Responsiveness is the cornerstone of relationship satisfaction, and parents with dementia may become increasingly unresponsive due to cognitive impairment. During a child's development, their parent's responsiveness-ability to perceive and tend to their core concerns, significantly impacts the child's attachment and self-image. Given increasing dementia prevalence and its impact on caregivers' mental health, understanding unresponsiveness may enhance caregiver support.

Leveraging Integrated Primary Care to Enhance the Health System Response to IPV: Moving toward Primary Prevention Primary Care.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prominent public health problem in the United States, with significant health impacts that are often severe and persistent. Healthcare systems have been called upon to improve both the systematic identification and treatment of IPV largely by adopting secondary and tertiary prevention efforts. Research to date demonstrates both benefits and challenges with the current strategies employed.

Relationship Health and Intimate Partner Violence in Integrated Primary Care: Individual Characteristics and Preferences for Relationship Support across Risk Levels.

This study explores differences in characteristics and relationship treatment preferences across different levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) among Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care patients. In Fall 2019, we sent a mail-in survey assessing relationship healthcare needs to N = 299 Veterans randomly sampled from 20 northeastern VA primary care clinics (oversampling female and younger Veterans). We compared those reporting past year use or experience of physical/sexual aggression, threats/coercion, or injury (Severe IPV; 21%), to those only reporting yelling and screaming (Verbal Conflict; 51%), and denying any IPV (No IPV; 28%).

Shocks to the system: The influence of COVID-19-related stressors on coparental and family functioning.

In addition to the fears associated with contracting COVID-19, the pandemic has forced families across the United States to quickly transition to new patterns of living. These transitions present new stressors, including health-related concerns, new demands placed on families by lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, and the possibility of losing a job or inability to pay bills. Such stressors have the potential to disrupt collaboration between coparents in addition to basic family functioning.

Validation of the Opioid Overdose Risk Behavior Scale, version 2 (ORBS-2).

Objective: To examine the factor structure of a revised and expanded opioid overdose risk behavior scale and assess its associations with known overdose indicators and other clinical constructs.

Background: Opioid-related overdose remains high in the U.S.

Sexual Dysfunction and Preferences for Discussing Sexual Health Concerns Among Veteran Primary Care Patients.

Background: Sexual health is an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of overall health. Veterans may be particularly at risk for sexual dysfunction. The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence and correlates of sexual dysfunction and examine preferences among veterans for discussing sexual problems.

Toward an optimized measure of perceived partner responsiveness: Development and validation of the perceived responsiveness and insensitivity scale.

Perceived partner responsiveness (PPR; Reis & Shaver, , 1988, Wiley)-the belief that one's partner will attend to core concerns-is a construct in basic relationship research that can help evaluate intimacy in couple therapy. However, research into PPR is hampered by a lack of standardized measurement. Three studies were undertaken to develop and evaluate an optimized self-report PPR measure.

Is Tinder-Grindr Use Risky? Distinguishing Venue from Individuals' Behavior as Unique Predictors of Sexual Risk.

Geosocial networking apps (GSN; e.g., Tinder, Grindr) have rapidly increased in popularity, showing associations with greater sexual risk-taking.

Delineating the Boundaries Between Nonmonogamy and Infidelity: Bringing Consent Back Into Definitions of Consensual Nonmonogamy With Latent Profile Analysis.

To gain insight into the mixed findings surrounding Consensual Nonmonogamy (CNM), this study developed the Triple-C model of commitment, conceptualizing relationship structures with three key dimensions: mutual consent, communication, and comfort. Latent profile analyses in an online sample (N = 1,658) identified five classes of relationship structures: two monogamous groups (68%; representing earlier- and later-stage relationships), CNM relationships (7.7%, marked by low interest in monogamy and high levels of mutual consent, comfort, and communication around commitment and EDSA), partially-open relationships (13%, with more mixed attitudes toward monogamy and lower consent, comfort, and communication), and one-sided EDSA relationships (11%, in which one partner desires monogamy while the other partner engages in EDSA with low levels of mutual consent, comfort, and communication).

Out Drinking the Joneses: Neighborhood Factors Moderating the Effects of Drinking on Relationship Quality over the First Four Years of Marriage.

Neighborhood quality has been cross-sectionally linked to both relationship behaviors and relationship well-being. Consistent with the Vulnerability Stress-Adaptation model of relationship functioning (Karney & Bradbury, 1995), we hypothesized that associations between social behaviors (e.g.

Positive and negative evaluation of relationships: Development and validation of the Positive-Negative Relationship Quality (PN-RQ) scale.

Three studies were undertaken to develop the Positive-Negative Relationship Quality scale (PN-RQ), conceptualizing relationship quality as a bidimensional construct in which the positive qualities of a relationship are treated as distinct from its negative qualities. Analyses in emerging adults (Study 1: N = 1,814), in online respondents (Study 2: N = 787) with a 2-week follow-up, and in a single group pre-intervention-post-intervention study (Study 3: N = 54) of the Promoting Awareness, Improving Relationships (PAIR) program provided support for (a) positive and negative qualities as distinct dimensions via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), (b) the PN-RQ representing an item response theory-optimized measure of these 2 dimensions, (c) substantive differences between indifferent (low positive and negative qualities) and ambivalent (high positive and negative qualities) relationships potentially obscured by unidimensional scales, (d) high levels of responsiveness of the PN-RQ scales to change over time, (e) the unique predictive validity offered over time by the PN-RQ scores beyond that offered by scores of current unidimensional measures of relationship quality, and (f) the unique longitudinal information gained by using the PN-RQ as a bidimensional outcome measure in an intervention study. Taken together, the studies offer promising support for the PN-RQ scales suggesting that they have the potential to advance both basic and applied research.