Patterns of Violence Victimization and Perpetration Among Adolescents Using Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

Research has identified interpersonal violence (a broad term that includes stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and physical dating violence) as a major problem among adolescents. Research suggests that there are different patterns, or classes, of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration, but little of this work has focused on adolescents. In the current study, we conducted latent class analysis using a sample of 2,921 adolescent girls and boys in high school from northern New England to assess varying patterns of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration over the past 2 months, specifically stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and dating violence. Four classes of violence victimization and perpetration were identified: (a) No Victimization or Perpetration class ( n = 1,898, 65.0%), (b) Low Victimization and Perpetration class ( n = 343, 11.7%), (c) Harassment Victimization Only class ( n = 560, 19.2%), and (d) High Victimization and Low Perpetration class ( n = 120, 4.1%). Several differences in classes emerged as a function of demographic and behavioral health variables. For example, the High Victimization and Low Perpetration class had the highest proportion of girls and youth with sexual minority status. Furthermore, youth in the High Victimization and Low Perpetration class also had a significantly higher proportion of class members endorsing depressed mood and engagement in binge drinking than the youth in other classes. These findings demonstrate the heterogeneity in patterns of interpersonal violence, which future research should seek to better understand in terms of etiology, outcomes, and best practices for prevention and intervention.

Categories of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) among young women and men: Latent Class Analysis of psychological, physical, and sexual victimisation and perpetration in a UK birth cohort

“…We can only broadly compare our findings to those from Haynie et al, Goncy et al, Sessarego et al, and Hébert et al, given the different victimisation items included, how they were captured (different questionnaire scales, and asking about different time frames of past two months to past year, compared to 'ever' in our study), and that perpetration was often included in models simultaneously to victimisation (Goncy et al, 2017;Haynie et al, 2013;Hebert et al, 2018;Sessarego et al, 2019). Nevertheless, we also reported a no-low and a multi-victimisation class, with similar rates of probable membership (77% and 4%, respectively) to the two studies in the older adolescents (Hebert et al, 2018;Sessarego et al, 2019), except that probabilities associated with the multi-victimisation class in Hébert et al's study were noticeably higher (12% for girls, 7% for boys) (Hebert et al, 2018). We also, like previous studies, found varied risks of negative impact of victimisation experiences, including some not explored before.…”

“…There are multiple IPVA studies of young people that have used LCA, but these studies almost exclusively come from north America, whereby the social and educational context greatly differs, as do modes of violence (e.g. the prevalence of violence through gun crime), compared with in the UK (Brooks-Russell, Foshee, & Ennett, 2013;French, Bi, Latimore, Klemp, & Butler, 2014;Goncy, Sullivan, Farrell, Mehari, & Garthe, 2017;Haynie et al, 2013;Hebert, Moreau, Blais, Oussaid, & Lavoie, 2018;Lapierre, Paradis, Todorov, Blais, & Hebert, 2019;Martin-Storey & Fromme, 2016;Mumford, Liu, & Taylor, 2019;Sessarego, Siller, & Edwards, 2019;Swartout, Cook, & White, 2012;Weir & Kaukinen, 2019). In addition, the broad majority of these LCA studies address longitudinal patterns/trajectories of either IPVA victimisation or IPVA perpetration occurrence over time, but not co-occurrence of different victimisation or perpetration types.…”

“…In addition, the broad majority of these LCA studies address longitudinal patterns/trajectories of either IPVA victimisation or IPVA perpetration occurrence over time, but not co-occurrence of different victimisation or perpetration types. (Brooks-Russell et al, 2013;Lapierre et al, 2019;Martin-Storey & Fromme, 2016;Miller et al, 2013;Mumford et al, 2019;Swartout et al, 2012;Weir & Kaukinen, 2019) North American school-based LCA studies addressing co-occurrence of different IPVA types have reported mixed results (Goncy et al, 2017;Haynie et al, 2013;Hebert et al, 2018;Sessarego et al, 2019). First, class characteristics appeared to differ by age.…”

“…Though Haynie et al reported three classes, and Goncy et al five, both reported classes that distinguished no-low victimisation or perpetration, psychological victimisation or perpetration only, and physical victimisation or perpetration only. Hébert et al and Sessarego et al studied older adolescents from high-school (mean ages 15 in each sample), and reported three-and four-class solutions, respectively (Hebert et al, 2018;Sessarego et al, 2019). Both reported some form of no-low victimisation Of the four studies, Haynie et al and Hébert et al fitted models separately by sex, and found similar class solutions between the sexes.…”

Improving Social Norms and Actions to Prevent Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Green Dot Community on Youth

“…G. Smith, Zhang, et al, 2018). SV and IPV are not limited to adults; these forms of violence affect youth at concerning rates (Edwards, 2018; Kann et al, 2018; Sessarego et al, 2019). These forms of violence lead to a host of negative effects for youth that can impede their development and future goals (Edwards, 2018; Gruber & Fineran, 2016).…”