Approximately 18 percent of teens in the U.S. experience sexual or physical abuse from a romantic partner, according to the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence. And more than 60 percent report psychological abuse from their romantic relationships. Not surprisingly, this abuse is associated with depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicide ideation, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers are also finding that digital abuse is a problem in teen relationships, according to Diana Freed, doctoral candidate in information sciences at Cornell.
“Since teens have been online more during the COVID pandemic, there is a growing problem now in using technology to perpetrate abuse within dating relationships as well as interpersonal relationships,” Freed said. Examples include asking romantic partners to provide access to their social media passwords, to enable location tracking and to share intimate images.
Teen dating violence prevention
There are many intervention programs that are focused on preventing teen dating violence. But do they work?
Yes, they do, according to a new systematic review published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics. The analysis includes more than 20,000 young adults who participated in 18 studies.
On the whole, the analysis found interventions led to a 22 percent reduction in either physical or sexual dating violence.
The review included a wide variety of interventions with different strategies, such as group discussions, individual interviews, classroom activities, and activities involving parents and children. The duration of the interventions ranged from one day to two years.
On the whole, researchers found the interventions effective at preventing physical abuse. However, there wasn’t clear evidence that the programs were able to prevent sexual violence. This could be, in part, because of the small amount of data collected on sexual violence prevention; the review only included six studies on sexual violence prevention. The authors also note that sexual violence is often more complex and difficult to address.
The analysis found many factors that led to more successful interventions:
- Programs for youth ages 15 and older were significantly more effective than those delivered to younger audiences. This could be because dating violence is more prevalent among older teens, the authors wrote.
- Programs aimed at youth with a history of violence tended to have a larger impact compared to universal prevention programs geared toward general populations, most likely because these youth were more likely to engage in dating violence.
- Interventions that included parents also had more impact than those involving only youth.
The take-home message: Educating youth about teen dating violence is an effective way to help prevent this behavior, promote safety, and ultimately help improve the mental health and well-being of youth.
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