Research Discussion on Sleep Coercion

A lunch and learn from Prevention at Pitt presented by Karen Jakubowski. Intimate partner violence encompasses a range of harmful behaviors, including physical and sexual violence and coercive control. Sleep is an unexplored behavior that abusive partners may attempt to abuse, manipulate, or control. In our ongoing NIH-funded research, we have identified ways that abusive partners directly interfere with or restrict sleep, which we have termed “sleep coercion and abuse.” We will present results from a series of qualitative interviews and focus groups with IPV survivors, advocates, clinicians, and researchers to discuss key aspects of sleep coercion and abuse. We will discuss future directions of this work, including the ongoing development of a self-report measure of sleep coercion survey and an intervention to improve IPV survivor sleep.