# A combined motivational interviewing and behavioral couples therapy intervention to reduce intimate partner violence and alcohol use in South India

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $640,610

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
A combined behavioral couples therapy and motivational interviewing intervention to reduce intimate
partner violence and alcohol use in South India
Globally, an estimated 30% of women have reported physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their
lifetime. Women who report intimate partner violence (IPV) have worse short- and long-term health outcomes,
including increased risk for sexually transmitted infections and HIV, poor maternal health outcomes, and
increased risk for suicide attempts. Perpetrator Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) increases risk taking behaviors,
and impairs problem-solving and cognitive processes, which may drive IPV. The current scientific
understanding of these urgent issues has following limitations: a) most interventions improve either IPV or AUD
but not both outcomes; b) interventions that successfully improve both are delivered by highly trained mental
health professionals, limiting access and scalability; and c) most interventions focus on either just the husband
or the wife but not both. These limitations have led to a strong scientific and implementation gap of
interventions that are feasible, effective, and scalable in low-resource settings to target both IPV and AUD.
Our Indo-US collaborative team pilot tested an intervention to deliver behavioral couple’s therapy (BCT), based
on principles derived from Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to enhance couple’s communication, combined with
contingency management to reduce alcohol use. This intervention was acceptable, feasible and showed
preliminary efficacy of IPV and alcohol use in couples when the husband had AUD. We now propose to build
on and extend this intervention to combine BCT with motivational interviewing (MI), delivered by primary care
nurses, to reduce alcohol use and IPV among couples in India and to test this in a randomized controlled trial.
Our research team has a long history of collaborative research in South Asia. Dr. Ekstrand has a 25 year
history of research in India, supported by 11 NIH-funded studies where she was the PI or MPI, six of which
were at the proposed site. Drs. Acharya and Ekstrand currently oversee two NIH-funded R34 and R21 studies
in South Asia successfully using MI. Dr. Srinivasan has led several studies that examined the relationship
between AUD and high-risk behavior, including IPV, and was the senior PI of our pilot intervention on which
this proposal is based. Dr Srinivasan has also been MPI on three NIH-funded R01 studies with Dr. Ekstrand.
We propose to build on this evidence base and robust research infrastructure at primary health clinics at our
South India site. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial (n= 400 couples) and study the impact of BCT
and MI in reducing IPV and AUD. The intervention will be delivered by nurses in primary health centers who
will be supervised by a clinical psychologist. We will perform intention to treat analyses to compare treatment
and control groups on the t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10691218
- **Project number:** 5R01AA029303-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Bibhav Acharya
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $640,610
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2027-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10691218

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10691218, A combined motivational interviewing and behavioral couples therapy intervention to reduce intimate partner violence and alcohol use in South India (5R01AA029303-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10691218. Licensed CC0.

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