A School-Based Program to Prevent Adolescent Dating Violence

Abstract

To determine whether an interactive curriculum that integrates dating violence prevention with lessons on healthy relationships, sexual health, and substance use reduces physical dating violence (PDV).Design: Cluster randomized trial with 2.5-year followup; prespecified subgroup analyses by sex.Setting: Grade 9 health classes.Participants: A total of 1722 students aged 14-15 from 20 public schools (52.8% girls).Intervention: A 21-lesson curriculum delivered during 28 hours by teachers with additional training in the dynamics of dating violence and healthy relationships. Dating violence prevention was integrated with core lessons about healthy relationships, sexual health, and substance use prevention using interactive exercises. Relationship skills to promote safer decision making with peers and dating partners were emphasized. Control schools targeted similar objectives without training or materials. Main Outcome Measures:The primary outcome at 2.5 years was self-reported PDV during the previous year. Secondary outcomes were physical peer violence, sub-stance use, and condom use. Analysis was by intentionto-treat. Results:The PDV was greater in control vs intervention students (9.8% vs 7.4%; adjusted odds ratio, 2.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.00-6.02; P = .05). A significant group ϫ sex interaction effect indicated that the intervention effect was greater in boys (PDV: 7.1% in controls vs 2.7% in intervention students) than in girls (12.1% vs 11.9%). Main effects for secondary outcomes were not statistically significant; however, sex ϫ group analyses showed a significant difference in condom use in sexually active boys who received the intervention (114 of 168; 67.9%) vs controls (65 of 111 [58.6%]) (PϽ.01). The cost of training and materials averaged CA$16 per student. Conclusion:The teaching of youths about healthy relationships as part of their required health curriculum reduced PDV and increased condom use 2.5 years later at a low per-student cost.

Efficacy of Interventions to Prevent Physical and Sexual Dating Violence Among Adolescents

“…This finding could also be explained by the higher levels of dating violence in older adolescents, as longitudinal studies have shown that TDV tends to emerge at an early age (age 13-15 years) and increases as a pattern into late adolescence (age 16-17 years). 42,54,55 We also found that intervention length and number of sessions were not significantly associated with the efficacy of prevention interventions, similar to other studies on peer violence. 52 Since the majority of the interventions included in this meta-analysis lasted only a few months, this study indicates that short to medium interventions may significantly reduce sexual and physical violence in teen dating relationships.…”

Exploring gender differences in dating violence/harassment prevention programming in middle schools: results from a randomized experiment

“…21 As perpetrators, boys committed more sexual victimization against peers (Wave 2 only) and more sexual victimization against dating partners (Waves 2 and 3) than girls did as perpetrators. Our findings on perpetration are congruent with findings showing that boys are more physically aggressive than girls (Dodge et al 2006;Foshee and Matthew 2007;Wolfe et al 2009). Our finding of greater involvement of boys in violence compared to girls is also consistent with the general criminological literature of males more likely to be both the perpetrators and victims of violence than females.…”

Adolescents’ Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies: Does Competence Vary by Context?

“…As social–emotional learning skills underlie the ability to mutually coordinate perspectives (Schonert‐Reichl et al, 2017), a focus on building social–emotional learning competencies, in addition to specific conflict negotiation strategies, is critical. A simultaneous focus on social‐emotional learning skills and conflict negotiation is already used by some dating violence prevention programs (e.g., Fourth R ; Wolfe et al, 2009); findings of our study support this focus and suggest it should be added to other existing programs. Second, while INS abilities with dating partners were generally poor, abilities with friends and parents were still not especially advanced.…”