Generally Antisocial Batterers with High Neuropsychological Deficits Present Lower Treatment Compliance and Higher Recidivism

Abstract

Objective: No studies have considered whether neuropsychological performance moderates the relationship between Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart's intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) offender typologies and treatment compliance and recidivism. Therefore, we first aimed to assess whether the typologies show differences in specific neuropsychological variables such as cognitive flexibility and emotion decoding processes. Second, we also assessed whether there are differences in treatment compliance and recidivism between the IPVAW offender typologies, based on their neuropsychological performance. Method: We administered a set of neuropsychological tests (e.g., Wisconsin card sorting test and eyes test) and self-reports to a group of IPVAW offenders (n=424). We also assessed their treatment compliance (i.e., dropout and intervention dose) and recidivism (i.e., risk of recidivism and official recidivism) after treatment. Results: Our analysis revealed that the FO offenders showed the best cognitive performance, followed by the BD group, with the GVA group showing the worst performance. Even though there were significant differences between the IPVAW offenders' typologies in their treatment compliance, and the recidivism, these differences were more pronounced when considering IPVAW offenders' typologies along with neuropsychological performance (high vs low). That is, FO with high cognitive functioning presented highest treatment compliance and lowest rates of recidivism. Conversely, GVA with low cognitive functioning presented the lowest treatment compliance and highest rate of recidivism. Conclusions: Our study highlights the need to design therapeutic programs with coadjutant neuropsychological training to attend not only to the psychological needs of IPVAW offenders, but also to the neuropsychological deficits that might facilitate lower treatment compliance and recidivism

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