Sexual Violence Victimization Among Youth Presenting to an Urban Emergency Department: The Role of Violence Exposure in Predicting Risk

Adolescents and sexual assault: A critical integrative review

Adolescents are sexually assaulted at remarkably high rates. Adolescents are also unique given the specific dynamics of adolescent sexual assault, their current stage in human development, their limited legal standing and rights, and their experiences navigating postassault services and resources. While literature exists within each of these domains, it is somewhat disconnected and overlooks how adolescents are often relegated to the margins in research and practice. The purpose of this integrative review is to (1) provide a more complete understanding of adolescent sexual assault and survivors' nuanced needs; (2) frame adolescent survivors as a too-often-overlooked oppressed group that researchers and responders must consider and center in their work, lest contribute to their further marginalization; and (3) inspire and orient social justice-minded scholar activists to various action steps to take to center and prioritize adolescents in research and practice. Through our intersectional feminist approach, we offer specific action steps for social justice-minded scholar activists to recenter adolescents in their research and practice.

Mandatory Reporting and Adolescent Sexual Assault

Adolescents experience alarmingly high rates of sexual violence, higher than any other age-group. This is concerning as sexual violence can have detrimental effects on teens' personal and relational well-being, causing long-term consequences for the survivor. Still, adolescents are hesitant to report the assault or seek out services and resources. When an adolescent survivor does seek out services, they may interact with a provider who is a mandatory reporter. This scoping review sought to synthesize the current U.S.-based research on the role, challenges, and impact of mandatory reporting (MR) in the context of adolescent sexual assault. Database searches using key words related to MR, sexual assault, and adolescence identified 29 peer-reviewed articles. However, none of these articles reported on empirical investigations of the phenomenon of interest and instead consisted of case studies, commentaries, and position papers. The scoping review was expanded to provide a lay of the land of what we know about the intersection of adolescent sexual assault and MR. Results of the review indicate that though implemented broadly, MR policies vary between individuals, organizations, and states and have historically been challenging to implement due to this variation, conflicts with other laws, tension between these policies and providers' values, and other factors. Based on the available literature, the impact of MR in the context of adolescent sexual assault is unknown. There is a critical need for research and evaluation on the implementation and impact of MR policies, especially in the context of adolescents and sexual violence.

Adolescent Relationship Abuse, Gender Equitable Attitudes, Condom and Contraception Use Self-Efficacy Among Adolescent Girls

Introduction: Experiencing adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) negatively impacts sexual health and influences risk behaviors of adolescent girls. ARA may be associated with more inequitable gender attitudes among girls, a potentially modifiable factor in violence prevention. This study examines the association among gender equitable attitudes, experiences of ARA, and sexual behaviors among girls participating in Sisterhood 2.0, a community-based violence prevention program implemented in low resource neighborhoods. Methods: Data were from baseline surveys collected for Sisterhood 2.0 implemented in Pittsburgh, PA. Participant demographics, gender equitable attitudes, self-efficacy to use condoms with partners, and self-efficacy to select appropriate contraception were assessed. A latent class analysis (LCA) estimated probability of responses to nine indicators, including sexual behavior self-efficacy and violence. Multigroup LCA by grade (9-12) was also estimated and analyses were performed with SAS V9.4. Results: Female-identified adolescents ages 13-19 (n = 246) were primarily Black (75%) and evenly distributed across grade in school. Sixty-five percent reported emotional relationship abuse and 31% reported physical abuse within the previous nine months. A three-class solution was best fitting for the LCA. Experiences of violence were related to less equitable gender attitudes, being sexually active, and lower condom and contraception self-efficacy. Younger participants who were sexual minorities with less educated heads of household had more experiences with ARA and less equitable gender attitudes. Discussion: Gender equitable attitudes were lower in adolescent girls with greater experiences of ARA and worse condom and contraception self-efficacy. Integrating discussions about healthy sexual relationships and gender equity may be salient factors in violence prevention.

Relations With the Educational Community and Transformative Beliefs Against Gender-Based Violence as Preventive Factors of Sexual Violence in Secondary Education

Nowadays sexual violence among adolescents continues to be detected in schools. In this sense, several studies show the great importance of the interactions of boys and girls with people in their educational environment to configure their emotional and sexual identity, their beliefs about violence, and their relationship with sexual violence, being necessary to identify the actions that prevent sexual violence at schools. In the current article, and according to the literature review, a model based on structural equations is proposed to analyze the influence of students' relationships with one another, with the educational community (at the center, with faculty, staff, other workers), and families' relationships with the center as well as adolescents' own beliefs related to gender violence on being a victim, bystander, or aggressor of behaviors related to sexual violence in a sample of 4,273 Spanish students in secondary education. This model is replicated for only women (n = 2,022) and only men (n = 2,038). The results show that positive relationships are a protective factor against involvement in situations of sexual aggression, and they influence the acquisition of transformative beliefs regarding models of attraction and nonviolence. In turn, these beliefs even more obviously affect the prevention of this type of violence.