Original articles
Adolescent help-seeking for dating violence: Prevalence, sociodemographic correlates, and sources of help

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2003.12.014Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

To examine the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of help-seeking and helping sources used by adolescent victims and perpetrators of dating violence.

Methods

Data are from the victims (n = 225) and perpetrators (n = 140) of dating violence identified from a longitudinal study of adolescent dating violence conducted in the public school system of a primarily rural North Carolina county. Logistic regression was used to examine bivariate and multivariate relationships between study variables and help-seeking or sources of help.

Results

Sixty percent of victims and 79% of perpetrators did not seek help for dating violence. Male perpetrators were more likely to seek help than female perpetrators. The odds of seeking help increased with perpetrators’ age (OR = 1.79 per year; 95% CI = 1.05, 5.76). Most victims and perpetrators who sought help chose friends and family members rather than professionals. Male victims and perpetrators who sought help were more likely than female victims and perpetrators to choose professional sources of help.

Conclusions

Most adolescent dating violence victims and perpetrators do not seek help. Male perpetrators and older perpetrators were more likely to seek help than female perpetrators or younger perpetrators. Friends and family members are more common sources for help-seeking than professionals, but males were more likely to seek help from professionals than females.

Section snippets

Methods

Data for this study were from self-administered questionnaires completed by adolescents in school as part of a study testing the effects of an adolescent dating violence prevention program [2]. A secondary purpose of data collection was to further explore characteristics associated with violence victimization or perpetration. The original study procedures were approved by the University of North Carolina School of Public Health Internal Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects. Active

Results

Consistent with Hypothesis 1, most victims and perpetrators did not seek help for dating violence. Sixty percent of the 225 victims and 79% of the 140 perpetrators reported they had not asked for help.

None of the sociodemographic characteristics were significantly associated with victims’ help-seeking (Table 2). Gender and age were associated with perpetrators’ help-seeking. However, contrary to expectations, male perpetrators were significantly more likely to seek help than female perpetrators

Discussion

Consistent with findings from studies of help-seeking for other problems [17], [18], the results of this study suggest that adolescents typically do not seek help for dating violence. However, contrary to findings from studies of help-seeking for other problems [17], [19], male perpetrators in this study were significantly more likely than female perpetrators to seek help. Although we reasoned that cultural norms would discourage help-seeking among males, society generally views males hitting

Conclusions

Most adolescents in our study did not seek help for dating violence; thus, prevention, early identification, and outreach targeting youths may be very important. Particularly, female and younger perpetrators were least likely to seek help, so helping resources should be prepared to address these populations. Most important, adolescents who sought help turned to friends and family, and the utilization of peers as confidantes and educators is implicit in these data. Victims and perpetrators

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a research grant from the Center for Study of the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill, and by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cooperative Agreement Number U81/CCU409964-03.

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    Copyright © 2005 Society for Adolescent Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.