Original articleDating Violence Perpetration and Victimization Among U.S. Adolescents: Prevalence, Patterns, and Associations With Health Complaints and Substance Use
Section snippets
Gender differences in dating violence
Research findings regarding associations of DV with gender are inconsistent across studies. When broad definitions of DV are used, higher rates are often found among boys compared with girls [18]. When type of victimization is considered, girls are more often victims of combined verbal and physical abuse, whereas males are more likely to experience only verbal abuse [19]. Females more frequently report experiencing more severe forms of physical and sexual violence [7], [10], [20]. Findings
Methods
A nationally representative sample of 2,524 10th grade students from 80 schools (public and private; 69% student response rate) was assessed during the 2009–2010 school year as part of the NEXT Generation Health Study. Required classes in 10th grade were selected randomly within schools. Research staff administered paper and pencil surveys; absent students had the opportunity to mail in their survey or complete it online. African-American youth were oversampled to provide better population
Dating violence
The revised Conflict Tactics Scale [29] was used to assess involvement in DV in the last 12 months. Five items assessing victimization asked youth whether his/her boyfriend/girlfriend did any of the following: (1) call him/her names or insult him/her; (2) swear at him/her; (3) threaten; (4) push or shove him/her; and (5) throw something that could hurt him/her. To assess perpetration, respondents were asked about exhibiting these same five behaviors in relationships. Students who answered “yes”
Descriptive statistics
Most respondents were white (57%) and female (53%), with a mean age of 16.2 years (Table 1). The prevalence of any victimization and any perpetration in the overall sample was 35% and 31% respectively. Twenty-four percent of students reported verbal but no physical victimization, and 11% reported physical victimization. Similarly, 21% reported verbal but no physical perpetration, and 9% reported some physical perpetration. The means for depressive symptoms, physical, and psychological
Discussion
Thirty-five percent of youth reported victimization and 31% of youth reported perpetration of verbal and/or physical DV in the last year; thus, youth report committing DV at similar rates as they are victimized. The prevalence of DV victimization found in this sample is similar to that reported for heterosexual youth in Add Health [10]. This is the first nationally representative study to present prevalence of perpetration, and the rate found is within the range of those reported in previous
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Faith Summersett-Ringgold and Michele Kiely, Dr.P.H., for their contributions to this paper. This project (contract number HHSN267200800009C) was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the Health Resources
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None of the authors have real, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.