Purposes: The current study explores (1) the proportion of selected Chinese men and women who engaged in victimisation, offending, and both victimisation and offending and (2) factors shared by victims, offenders, and victim-offenders of IPV.

Methods: The data were drawn from a larger survey project implemented in a rural village in Shandong Province, China. A total of 979 men and women who were married or cohabiting were selected for the present study. We applied multinomial logistic regression to identify risk factors across the four groups of respondents, consisting of no involvement, victims only, offenders only, and victim-offenders, and no involvement in any IPV was used as the reference category.

Results: A large percentage of our male and female respondents assumed the dual role of victim and offender. This finding indicates that most IPV between intimate partners is bidirectional. Also, the evidence points towards the shared characteristics of mental health problems and early violent socialisation in IPV offending and victimisation.

Conclusions: Mental health is a pressing concern in China, and the provision of services in rural areas is far less than that in urban areas. Thus, accessible services are urgent for those who are in need in rural areas. As much of IPV is reciprocal in the family context and adverse violence socialisation in childhood heightens the risk of IPV overlap, IPV services should be available to both adults and children to maximise the effect of spousal abuse interventions and end the cycle of violence in families.