Male dating violence victimization and adjustment: the moderating role of coping

Bullying and truancy amongst school-going adolescents in Timor-Leste: results from the 2015 global school-based health survey

INTRODUCTION

Studies in Southeast Asia found that bullying commonly occurred among students, and it has a detrimental impact on their school attendance. However, there is a paucity of literature in Timor-Leste on the association between bullying and truancy. Therefore, this study examined the association between bullying and truancy among Timor-Leste school-going adolescents.

METHODS

We used the 2015 Timor-Leste Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) dataset to examine our hypothesis in logistic regression models for both full adolescents (N = 3609) and gender stratified samples. The models further controlled for other sociodemographic variables. Statistical significance was pegged at p ≤ 0.05, and the analyses were performed in Stata version 14.

RESULTS

About 28% [95% CI:25.7, 30.8] and 36% [95% CI:33.5, 39.5] of school-going adolescents had experienced bullying and truancy, respectively. In-school adolescents who were bullied were more likely to be truant in school even after controlling for the effects of sex, age, grade in school, food insecurity, current substance use, number of friends, colleague support, and parental involvement. This relationship remained significant in the full and gender stratified models. Additionally, school-going adolescents who were currently using substances were truant. Males who were in a physical fight while females who were physically attacked were more likely to be truant.

CONCLUSION

The study showed that bullying was related to truancy among school-going adolescents in Timor-Leste. Implementation of interventions such as Project START (Stop Truancy and Recommend Treatment) to curtail the incidence of bullying, regulation of current substance use, creating an enabling environment to reduce physical fights, and attacks will significantly reduce the rate of truancy among school-going adolescents in Timor-Leste.

Dating and relationship violence victimization and perpetration among 11-16 year olds in Wales: a cross-sectional analysis of the School Health Research Network (SHRN) survey

Background

This study examines the prevalence of dating and relationship violence (DRV) victimization, perpetration and joint victimization and perpetration, and associations between DRV and socio-demographic characteristics.

Methods

Cross-sectional self-report data from 74 908 students aged 11–16 from 193 schools across Wales were collected and analysed using generalized estimating equations to examine prevalence and predictors of emotional and physical DRV victimization, perpetration and joint victimization and perpetration.

Results

More girls reported emotional victimization (28%) and perpetration (18%) than boys (20% and 16%, respectively). More girls (8%) than boys (7%) reported physical perpetration. However, boys (17%) reported more physical victimization than girls (12%). Age-related trajectories of DRV victimization and perpetration were stronger in girls than in boys. Students from single or step parent homes, those in care, and certain ethnic minority groups had increased odds of DRV. No association was found between socioeconomic status and DRV.

Conclusions

Age-related trajectories and the lack of social patterning by socioeconomic status point to the value of early, universal interventions, while some evidence of ethnic patterning and family structure-related risk factors suggest areas for further research and targeted interventions. DRV continues to be a major public health problem for which little UK-specific intervention evidence exists.

Stay or Leave Abusive Dating Relationships: Portuguese Victims’ Reasons and Barriers

The decision to stay or leave an abusive relationship is multifactorial and frequently involves a cyclic process involving several phases. This article presents a qualitative analysis regarding the reasons and barriers to stay or leave an abusive dating relationship, as well as the challenges that it implies. A semi-structured, in-depth interview was used to collect data from thirteen dating victims, aged 17–30 years and mainly female (n = 12). The emotional and affective dependence of the partner and the belief that behaviour may change emerge as the main reasons presented by the victims to remain in an abusive relationship. Shame, fear of losing the partner, and failure to recognize the abusive relationship were reported as the main barriers to leave the abusive relationship, thus making it difficult to seek help. Understanding reasons to stay in, or barriers to leave, an abusive relationship is fundamental to promoting help-seeking behaviours in victims of dating violence (DV), particularly in the case of young people, since it has serious implications in the developmental pathway of this age group.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Chronic Idiopathic URTICARIA: the Role of Coping and Personality

This study compared the severity of chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU) and psychiatric symptoms between patients with different levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and investigated a model depicting the interrelationship between PTSD from past trauma, personality traits, coping strategies, CIU severity and psychiatric symptom severity. One hundred CIU and 60 allergy patients participated in the study, completing measures on PTSD, psychiatric symptoms, personality traits and coping strategies. The results showed that for CIU patients, 7%, 40 and 34% met the diagnostic criteria for no-PTSD, partial-PTSD and full-PTSD respectively whereas for allergy patients, 15%, 45 and 18% met the same criteria. Apart from CIU, psychiatric symptom severity differed significantly between diagnostic groups. PTSD was associated with coping strategies which were in turn associated with CIU severity and psychiatric symptom severity. PTSD was not significantly associated with personality. Emotion-focused coping mediated PTSD and CIU severity, PTSD and psychiatric symptom severity and neuroticism and CIU severity. To conclude, psychiatric symptom severity varies depending on the level of PTSD among CIU patients. Neurotic patients with a high level of PTSD from past trauma show raised CIU and psychiatric symptom severity when using emotion-focused coping strategies.

Adult Attachment Styles, Destructive Conflict Resolution, and the Experience of Intimate Partner Violence

Although there is ample evidence linking insecure attachment styles and intimate partner violence (IPV), little is known about the psychological processes underlying this association, especially from the victim's perspective. The present study examined how attachment styles relate to the experience of sexual and psychological abuse, directly or indirectly through destructive conflict resolution strategies, both self-reported and attributed to their opposite-sex romantic partner. In an online survey, 216 Spanish undergraduates completed measures of adult attachment style, engagement and withdrawal conflict resolution styles shown by self and partner, and victimization by an intimate partner in the form of sexual coercion and psychological abuse. As predicted, anxious and avoidant attachment styles were directly related to both forms of victimization. Also, an indirect path from anxious attachment to IPV victimization was detected via destructive conflict resolution strategies. Specifically, anxiously attached participants reported a higher use of conflict engagement by themselves and by their partners. In addition, engagement reported by the self and perceived in the partner was linked to an increased probability of experiencing sexual coercion and psychological abuse. Avoidant attachment was linked to higher withdrawal in conflict situations, but the paths from withdrawal to perceived partner engagement, sexual coercion, and psychological abuse were non-significant. No gender differences in the associations were found. The discussion highlights the role of anxious attachment in understanding escalating patterns of destructive conflict resolution strategies, which may increase the vulnerability to IPV victimization.

The effect of training problem-solving skills for pregnant women experiencing intimate partner violence: a randomized control trial

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) in pregnancy is considered as an additional threat to the maternal/fetal health. The present study was aimed to investigate the effectiveness of training problem-solving skills on IPV against pregnant women.

Methods

The present randomized clinical trial was conducted on 125 and 132 women visiting the health centers of Tehran as the intervention and the control groups, respectively; samples were selected using random stratified cluster sampling. The intervention group underwent four problem-solving training sessions. Three months later, both groups completed the revised Conflict Tactics Scale questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS v.16.

Results

The mean (SD) ages of the participants were 27.51 (4.26) and 27.02 (4.26) years, respectively, in the control and the intervention groups. The rates of the physical and psychological violence were significantly reduced after the intervention in the intervention group. Risk differences of the physical, psychological and sexual violence before and after the intervention were 3% (95% CI: -8.23 to14.13, P = 0.6), 1.5% (95% CI: -4.93 to 8.03, P = 0.6) and 4.8% (95% CI: -7.11 to 16.52, P = 0.4) in the control group and 8.8% (95% CI: -3.47 to 20.71, P = 0.1), 25.4% (95% CI: 15.77 to 34.66, P < 0.001) and 4.9% (95% CI: -7.38 to16.97, P = 0.4) in the intervention group, respectively.

Conclusion

It seems that training this skill as a part of the routine prenatal care could be effective in reducing intimate partner violence.

Do Alcohol and Marijuana Increase the Risk for Female Dating Violence Victimization? A Prospective Daily Diary Investigation

OBJECTIVE

Dating violence is a serious and prevalent problem, with females being victimized by partners at high rates with numerous negative health consequences. Previous research has been equivocal on whether substance use on the part of the victim temporally precedes and, thus, increases the odds of victimization. While the sole responsibility for violence is always with the perpetrator, knowing this information could provide useful information for theory as well as interventions designed to keep women safe.

METHOD

Participants were female college students in a current dating relationship who had consumed alcohol in the previous month (N = 173). Students completed daily surveys on their violence victimization, alcohol use, and marijuana use for up to 90 consecutive days.

RESULTS

On any drinking days, heavy drinking days, and as the number of alcoholic drinks consumed increased, women were more likely to be victimized by psychological, physical, and sexual dating violence. Marijuana use also preceded and increased the odds of sexual victimization. Relationship length moderated some of these temporal associations, such that the odds of victimization on a drinking day, or marijuana use day, were increased for participants in longer relationships.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings underscore the importance of considering the role that alcohol and marijuana use play in increasing the risk for dating violence victimization among women. Intervention programs for dating violence may benefit by attempting to decrease substance use in order to reduce risk for female victims.

Interpersonal polyvictimization and mental health in males

A consistent conclusion within the extant literature is that victimization and in particular polyvictimization leads to adverse mental health outcomes. A large body of literature exists as it pertains to the association between victimisation and mental health in studies utilising samples of childhood victims, female only victims, and samples of male and female victims; less research exists as it relates to males victims of interpersonal violence. The aim of the current study was therefore to identify profiles of interpersonal victimizations in an exclusively male sample and to assess their differential impact on a number of adverse mental health outcomes. Using data from 14,477 adult males from Wave 2 of the NESARC, we identified interpersonal victimization profiles via Latent Class Analysis. Multinomial Logistic Regression was subsequently utilized to establish risk across mental health disorders. A 4-class solution was optimal. Victimisation profiles showed elevated odds ratios for the presence of mental health disorders; suggesting that multiple life-course victimisation typologies exists, and that victimization is strongly associated with psychopathology. Several additional notable findings are discussed.

Drinking and Dating: Examining the Link between Relationship Satisfaction, Hazardous Drinking, and Readiness-to-Change in College Dating Relationships

The present study examined the influence of relationship satisfaction on readiness-to-change alcohol use and the influence of hazardous drinking on readiness-to-change relationship issues in college student dating relationships. A sample of 219 college students in a current dating relationship (aged 18-25) completed self-report measures of dating relationship satisfaction, alcohol use, readiness-to-change alcohol use, and readiness-to-change relationship issues via an online survey from August to December 2011. Participants were grouped on the basis of their scores on measures of alcohol use (hazardous drinkers vs. nonhazardous drinkers) and relationship satisfaction (high vs. low). Results indicated that alcohol use was negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, hazardous drinkers with high relationship satisfaction indicated more readiness-to-change alcohol use than hazardous drinkers with low relationship satisfaction. Alcohol problems were not related to readiness-to-change relationship issues. These findings indicate that highly satisfied dating relationships during college may positively influence readiness-to-change heavy drinking habits among college students.

Genetic associations with intimate partner violence in a sample of hazardous drinking men in batterer intervention programs

The etiology of intimate partner violence (IPV) is multifactorial. However, etiological theories of IPV have rarely included potential genetic factors. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether a cumulative genetic score (CGS) containing the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and the human serotonin transporter gene linked polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) was associated with IPV perpetration after accounting for the effects of alcohol problems, drug problems, age, and length of relationship. We obtained DNA from 97 men in batterer intervention programs in the state of Rhode Island. In the full sample, the CGS was significantly associated with physical and psychological aggression and injuries caused to one's partner, even after controlling for the effects of alcohol problems, drug problems, age, and length of relationship. Two of the men in the sample likely had Klinefelter's syndrome, and analyses were repeated excluding these two individuals, leading to similar results. The implications of the genetic findings for the etiology and treatment of IPV among men in batterer intervention programs are briefly discussed.

10-year trends in physical dating violence victimization among U.S. adolescent males

This study provides 10-year trend data on the psychosocial correlates of physical dating violence victimization (PDV) among male participants (N = 7,949 in 2009) in the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 1999-2009. Unadjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were examined followed by multivariate logistic regression analyses, which included all significant independent variables from the univariate analyses. Adjusted OR and 95% CI assessed the significance of the relationships. PDV was significantly and consistently associated with feelings of sadness or hopelessness, repeated engagement in physical fighting, current and multiple sex partners, and lack of condom use. A less consistent but noteworthy pattern was found for PDV and gun carrying and cocaine use among adolescent males. PDV is an important public health issue for adolescent males, not just females. There appears to be a set of stable correlates of dating violence victimization among high school males in the United States.