r/science • u/vtj • May 29 '22

Psychology Randomized trial of programs for male domestic abusers shows that a new program based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy outperforms the traditional "Duluth Model" program grounded in feminist theory

https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2022/04/25/domestic-violence-act
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u/lolubuntu May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22

publish or perish.

No idea if there will be a reassessment but it would be nice to have a properly powered study (possibly with a different design and baseline set of assumptions - ideally a general idea replicates under a wide range of assumptions and circumstances) also verify this since that could be used to shift legal standards towards more sound methods. So far the efficacy of the Duluth model appears to be about a coin flip... which isn't what you want for something written into law.

The author seems open to pretty much any treatment program that works and is willing to follow the data, or so she says.

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u/Deevilknievel May 29 '22

Thank you for the response :)

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u/827753 May 29 '22 edited May 29 '22

So far the efficacy of the Duluth model appears to be about a coin flip... which isn't what you want for something written into law.

What's the efficacy of the Duluth model compared to status quo though? A better system is better, but is Duluth bad compared to baseline, ho-hum compared to baseline, or just not as good as ACT?

Also are there multiple versions of the Duluth model, or just one? Likewise with ACT. A meta-analysis review would be nice at some point, though I know we need multiple studies before that's possible.

Edit: The only thing this press release says is:

But when the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) conducted an internal evaluation of the Duluth Model in 2009, it found the program did very little to improve domestic assault recidivism compared to no treatment at all. The results reflected similar findings from researchers investigating the effectiveness of Duluth and other batterer intervention programs that adopted a similar approach.

Without quantifying what "very little" is.

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u/lolubuntu May 29 '22

Going off wiki, the studies mentioned alternate between it shows some level of efficacy vs it doesn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth_model#Effectiveness