The REPROVIDE intervention: is a randomised controlled trial testing the effectiveness of domestic violence perpetrator programmes, acceptable to non-mandated perpetrators and their (ex)partners?

Undertaking any randomised controlled trial can present difficulties in terms of recruitment and retention. Conducting such a trial with domestic violence perpetrators is particularly challenging. This paper gives an overview of the REPROVIDE trial and discusses how acceptable this method of research was to participants.
In a pilot study assessing the acceptability of a trial designed to test the effectiveness of DVPPs, 36 men were randomly allocated to either a 26-week programme, or to a usual care comparison arm. Alongside the men, we recruited (ex)partners, collecting questionnaire data at 3-monthly intervals, and interviewing some participants to elicit further information about the acceptability of the trial and the DVPP.
The REPROVIDE pilot trial was feasible and acceptable. In interviews, men who completed all or most of the DVPP reported changes in their own behaviour, and this was largely supported by the women we interviewed. Men not allocated to the DVPP reported feeling disappointed but they understood the rationale. They expressed a desire to support research into domestic abuse and used it as a way to monitor their own behaviour. Similarly, women attached to men in the comparison group discussed feeling ‘safer’, simply because they and their (ex)partners were regularly completing questionnaires.