Publication on People with Multiple Sclerosis’s Experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse

The Routledge Handbook of Disability, Crime, and Justice, edited by Stephen J. Macdonald and Donna Peacock, was published on 22nd May 2025. This features a book chapter by Kharis Hutchison, which presents a narrative review on People with Multiple Sclerosis’s Experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse.

Please e-mail Kharis directly at k.hutchison@leeds.ac.uk  if you would like to receive a pre-print copy of the chapter.

In this review Hutchison draws attention to the fact that previous literature has highlighted that people with MS experience increased social isolation and unemployment resulting in greater dependency on partners and family members. This has been identified as causing tension and relationship breakdown demonstrating their increased risk of DVA. Drawing on a range of published literature the review finds limited research regarding DVA and people with MS with the available literature mostly discussing abuse, neglect, and mistreatment within the caregiving context. The review’s findings highlight the significance of previous research exploring the DVA experiences of disabled people to contextualising the experiences of people with MS. This includes research demonstrating the complexity of carer abuse, such as the difficulty identifying this form of abuse and the complicated power dynamics when the perpetrator is your partner and carer, and the connection between the acquirement of an impairment and the start of DVA. The review concludes that the current research considering people with MS and DVA has failed thus far to explore people with MS’s experiences in-depth having instead either used quantitative methods or solely focussed on the caregiving context. It is identified that further research is required which not only explores the DVA experiences of people with MS, but which also aims to understand how to best support them as both victim-survivors of DVA and people with MS.