Intimate Partner Violence Survivors' Daily Experiences of Social Disconnection, Substance Use, and Sex with Secondary Partners

Women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) are disproportionately likely to engage in sexual risk behavior, including sex with a secondary partner (i.e., sex partners outside their primary relationship). Social disconnection has been identified as a social determinant of health that may enhance understanding of sex with a secondary partner. This study extends past research by using an intensive longitudinal design consisting of multiple daily assessments to examine event-level associations between women IPV survivors' social disconnection and sex with a secondary partner concurrently (i.e., during the same aggregated assessment) and temporally (i.e., social disconnection during one assessment predicting sex with a secondary partner in a subsequent assessment) over a 14-day period, in consideration of physical, psychological, and sexual IPV, and alcohol and drug use. Participants (N = 244) were recruited from New England through 2017. Results from multilevel logistic regression models indicate that women who experienced greater social disconnection on average were more likely to report sex with a secondary partner. However, after including IPV and substance use in the model, the strength of this relationship was attenuated. Sexual IPV emerged as a between-person predictor of sex with a secondary partner in temporally lagged models. Results provide insight into the relationships between daily social disconnection and sex with a secondary partner among IPV survivors, particularly regarding the effects of substance use and IPV both concurrently and temporally. Taken together, findings emphasize the importance of social connection for women's well-being and highlight the need for interventions that enhance interpersonal connectedness.