School‐Based Interventions to Reduce Dating and Sexual Violence: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This Campbell systematic review examines the effectiveness of school‐based interventions to reduce or prevent violence in intimate relationships. The review focused on programmes to change attitudes and beliefs, reduce perpetration and victimization, and change behaviours. The systematic review included 23 studies. Prevention programmes improve young people's knowledge about, and attitudes towards, dating violence. These effects were sustained at follow up. Students in the intervention group showed moderate increases in knowledge about dating violence, a lower acceptance of stereotypical ‘rape myths’, and moderate improvements in appropriately resolving conflicts in interpersonal relationships. A limited number of studies examined the effects of school‐based programmes on the amount of violence perpetrated and on victimization. These studies suggest that prevention programmes have little impact on behaviour. Executive summary/Abstract BACKGROUNDThe incidence of psychological, physical, and sexual violence in intimate dating relationships has a significant impact on young people. These issues are of great concern to researchers, educators, and administrators who strive to help youth be happy and healthy. This review focused on prevention and intervention efforts implemented in schools that sought to reduce or prevent incidents of dating violence. OBJECTIVESThe main objective of this review was to evaluate and synthesize the efficacy of school‐based interventions that sought to reduce or prevent teen dating violence or sexual violence in intimate relationships. Specifically this review evaluated the impact of dating violence prevention programs implemented in middle and high schools on changing attitudes or beliefs supportive of teen dating violence, reducing incidents of dating violence perpetration, or reducing incidents of dating violence victimization. Additionally, this review examined potential substantive or methodological variables (e.g., program characteristics, age, gender, location) that moderated the effect sizes. SEARCH STRATEGYAn extensive search strategy was used to identify qualifying studies. Various electronic bibliographic databases were searched in July 2013, along with government databases, grey literature databases, and citations in other reviews. In addition, we searched the reference lists of primary studies, hand searched relevant journals, and searched the Internet using Google and Google Scholar. We also contacted researchers who have published extensively in the area of teen dating violence and researchers who have received grants to implement teen dating violence prevention programs to identify studies in press or in preparation. Neither language nor date restrictions were applied to the searches. SELECTION CRITERIAStudies were required to meet several criteria to be eligible for inclusion. Studies must: have a well‐defined control group. include a school‐based intervention, implemented with students between 4th and 12th grade. have a primary goal of reducing or preventing teen dating ...

Adolescent Relationship Aggression Perpetration and Victimization in the Context of Neighborhood Gender Equality

“…Much research has focused on individual-level risk factors for ARA victimization and perpetration (e.g., Foshee et al 2011;Garthe et al 2016;Vagi et al 2013), but prevention efforts to address these risks have had varying results. For instance, evaluations of a few middle and high school based prevention programs show limited impact (De La Rue et al 2014). Overall, programmatic efforts tend to focus on adolescent attitudes, intentions, and skills, rather than community norms and structural factors, consistent with the research focus to date.…”

Examining the Prevalence and Predictors of Injury From Adolescent Dating Violence

“…Some programs have shown promise and, traditionally, schools have been the primary setting for dating violence prevention programs (De La Rue, Polanin, Espelage, & Pigott, 2014). Some newer programs such as Families for Safe Dates have also engaged parents (Foshee, Reyes, Ennett, et al, 2012).…”

Efficacy evaluation of "Dat-e Adolescence": A dating violence prevention program in Spain

“…To date, evidence-based programs have mainly been carried out in the United States and Canada; and they are still scarce across Europe and South America [ 13 ]. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews conducted thus far [ 14 , 15 , 13 ] coincide in terms of heterogeneity across different programs, their moderate methodological quality, and their efficacy in bringing about changes in knowledge and beliefs associated with love and violence reaching effect sizes of .47 [ 14 ]. However, data on their efficacy in reducing dating aggression and/or victimization have proved less conclusive; only three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been found to yield positive outcomes in this area, namely Safe Dates [ 16 ], The Fourth R [ 17 ], and S tepping Stones [ 18 ] although, the effect sizes of these interventions were from moderate to low.…”