Adolescent cyber dating abuse victimization and its associations with substance use, and sexual behaviors

doi:10.1016/j.puhe.2016.02.011

Public Health

Volume 135, June 2016, Pages 147-151

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2016.02.011 Get rights and content

Highlights

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This study is one of the first to investigate the associations between cyber dating abuse victimization and risk behaviors.
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The links between victimization, substance use, and sexual (risk) behaviors among adolescents were investigated.
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Victims of cyber dating abuse were more likely to report episodic heavy drinking than non-victims across gender.
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Victimization was also linked to more frequent alcohol use among males and having had unprotected sex among females.

Introduction

Cyber dating abuse (CDA) is often defined as ‘the control, harassment, stalking, and abuse of one's dating partner via technology and social media’ (Zweig et al.¹, p.1306). Although the literature is replete with studies on the association between traditional teen dating violence victimization and a host of risky behaviors, such as substance use and sexual risk behavior,2, 3, 4, 5 only scant research is available on the associations between health risk behaviors and online forms of victimization.¹ An increased understanding of the link between CDA victimization and health risk behaviors will inform prevention and intervention programs.1, 3 Therefore, the current study aims to look at the associations between substance use, sexual behaviors, and CDA victimization.

Section snippets

Sample

The current data are drawn from the Teen Digital Dating Survey and were collected between March and May 2015 in seven secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. The final sample comprised of 1187 students (61.3% female). In this study, we only report on data from respondents who indicated that they were ‘in a romantic relationship with someone or had a romantic partner’ (39.3%, n = 466). All students in a romantic relationship (71.0% girls, n = 331) were between 16 and 22 years old (M = 17.99

Results

The data were analyzed with SPSS v.22.0. Respondents with a recent history of CDA victimization were compared to their counterparts without a recent history (see Table 1). The analyses were then stratified by gender (see Table 2). To assess the differences between the groups we used chi-squared tests for dichotomous variables and t-tests for ordinal variables. We employed Fisher's Exact Tests (FET) to analyze the differences between the groups if more than 20% of the expected counts were less

Discussion

Investigating the associations between CDA victimization and other types of health behavior is important for future research and practice. Building on previous research concerning the associations between offline forms of dating violence and alcohol use,2, 3, 5, 8, 9 our study found that CDA victimization is linked to engagement in binge drinking for both males and females. However, we only found significant associations with frequency of alcohol use for males. Therefore, our finding is

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the undergraduate students Lien Maldoy, Esther Sikkens, and Moniek Wallink for their assistance with the data collection.

Statement of ethical approval

The study's protocol was approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Antwerp.

Funding source

The study was supported by the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp (BOF DOC PRO 2013 - 41/FA040300/FFB130145). The study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the report and the decision to submit the article for

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References (10)

D.L. Haynie et al.
Dating violence perpetration and victimization among U.S. adolescents: prevalence, patterns, and associations with health complaints and substance use
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Dating abuse is widely recognized as a public health issue. A relationship between cyber and in-person dating abuse (CDA and IDA) has been established. A systematic review was carried out with the aim of identifying the studies that analyzed the relationship between CDA and IDA. Filtering by keywords that referred to the sentimental relationship, the context (in-person, online), the aggressive behavior and the participants (adolescents and young adults under 30 years of age) in four databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Science Direct. Studies in English, Portuguese and Spanish were included, and were selecting according to the defined inclusion criteria. A total of 35 studies in English, Portuguese or Spanish met the criteria. A great variability in terms of the methodology adopted by the studies to analyze the relationship between the CDA and the IDA was found, as well as a great diversity in terms of the type of analyses and instruments. Studies showed an overlapping between CDA and IDA as well as strong correlates. However, more longitudinal studies are necessary to concluded about temporal relationships. As implications for preventive policies, it is suggested that interventions in dating abuse should consider both online and offline context.
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In the last decade, research related to intimate abuse through technology has increased exponentially, and numerous scientific constructs have been created to define this phenomenon. These constructs tend to be compared or used interchangeably, but several previous studies have emphasized that this multiplurality of constructs could contribute to the existence of constraints in the interpretation and comparison of results between studies. To address these constraints, we undertook a systematic review with the aims of (1) identifying scientific constructs related to intimate abuse through technology and (2) identifying behavioral dimensions developed to analyze this phenomenon. In our review, we included 126 studies and identified 42 constructs and 20 multidimensional behavioral sets related to intimate abuse through technology. On the basis of our analysis, we recommend that future studies adopt the construct of digital dating abuse or the initial theoretical formulation of cyber dating abuse to analyze this phenomenon since they both provide formal definitions and full-spectrum behavioral dimensions; however, these constructs also present some limitations. We also recommend that future studies consider expanding this research field to different configurations of intimate relationships, considering the inclusion of more diverse age groups.
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As demonstrated in this review, we are met with a variety of instruments, ranging from those that evaluate the phenomenon from a one-dimensional approach which include a considerable number of different behaviors (Foshee et al., 2015; Han & Margolin, 2016; Temple et al., 2016), to multidimensional measures (Reed et al., 2017; Zweig et al., 2014) that contain specific dimensions comprising just one item (Barter et al., 2017; Stonard, 2019). Furthermore, although studies have made considerable efforts to identify nonsexual cyber dimensions such as control/monitoring (Cava & Buelga, 2018; Johnson, 2017; Morelli et al., 2018; Muñiz, 2017; Quesada et al., 2018; Reed et al., 2017; Sánchez-Jiménez et al., 2017; Van Ouytsel et al., 2016), cyber behaviors of a sexual nature have been less explored. Those studies that have addressed these cyber sexual behaviors have done so from a macro-dimensional perspective.
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Short CommunicationAdolescent cyber dating abuse victimization and its associations with substance use, and sexual behaviors

Highlights

Introduction

Section snippets

Sample

Results

Discussion

Acknowledgements

Statement of ethical approval

Funding source

First page preview

J Adolesc Health

J Adolesc Health

Comput Hum Behav

Correlates of cyber dating abuse among teens

J Youth Adolesc

Dating violence against adolescent girls and associated substance use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk behavior, pregnancy, and suicidality

Jama

Short Communication
Adolescent cyber dating abuse victimization and its associations with substance use, and sexual behaviors