BETTER MAN: A healthy relationship tool to encourage help seeking for men who use violence in their intimate relationships

BETTER MAN is a healthy relationship website for early intervention that offers a private, accessible and non-judgemental resource for men who use intimate partner violence. The website uses interactive quizzes with feedback messaging to participants and short videos and animations. There is no interaction with the research team. Motivational interviewing techniques are used across the three sequential modules (Better Communication, Better Values, Better Relationships) that compose BETTER MAN. The exercises in each module aim to encourage awareness and self-reflection, reduce stigma to seek help, and improve communication skills. The final module (Take Action) provides men with an action plan with specific strategies to seek help for their behaviour in relationships, any mental health, alcohol, drug and gambling issues and if they have children, addressing parenting issues. All modules have online messaging tailored to user input and below we describe each module and provide an example of feedback. The BETTER COMMUNICATION module looks at how a man’s communication style may differ with a partner compared to others, and promotes positive communication (listening, staying calm), use of a grounding breathing exercise and recognising signals of potentially abusive behaviour. At the end of the module, participants are invited to set communication goals and reflect on how they would like to respond next time they have an argument with their partner or ex-partner. The BETTER VALUES module explores how men’s behaviour in relationships aligns with his self-identified values using hypothetical scenarios to highlight discrepancy between values and behaviour. In the core activity of this module, participants choose the values that are most important to them in their intimate relationships, answer how they would likely respond to certain relationship issues, rate how true they think their responses are to their values, and receive feedback (e.g., "You have indicated that your responses and values are somewhat true to each other. It's great that your values and behaviours match sometimes, but there might be other things in your life that are distracting you from being true to what is truly important to you. Taking time out to consider the kind of person and partner you want to be can help to bring your values and behaviours closer together"). The BETTER RELATIONSHIPS module encourages a man to reflect on the health of his relationship, his behaviours (physical, emotional, sexual abuse), and weigh up pros/cons of his relationship, including reflecting on his relationship with his children. In one of the activities, participants are invite to reflect on their behaviours in their intimate relationships. They first selected within a list of risk behaviours (e.g., "called my partner names or told them they're crazy", "used physical force against my partner and/or children?") those that they might have done, and then receive feedback (e.g., "Remember: We are talking about your behaviours, not you as a person. Behaviours can be changed! Better Man will help you to see that it's never too late to change and that it is easier with the right help. High risk: The answers you have given suggest your behaviours are putting your partner or family in danger. There is help available to reduce this danger. Men's Referral Service are available 24/7 and are trained to help support safety in situations such as yours.") A final TAKE BETTER ACTION section reinforces help seeking, and provides resources for related areas (parenting, alcohol/drug use, mental health). The modules take 30 minutes and men can go back to the website any time over the six month period. We will access web-portal analytics to understand adherence to the intervention module.