Factors predictive of sexual violence: Testing the four pillars of the Confluence Model in a large diverse sample of college men.

This article focuses on the characteristics of sexually violent men who have not been convicted of a crime. The objective of this study was to test the four key interrelated pillars of the Confluence Model. The first key pillar posits the interaction of Hostile Masculinity and Impersonal Sex as core risk predictors. The second pillar entails a "mediated structure" wherein the impact of more general risk factors is mediated via those specific to aggression against women. The third pillar comprises a single latent factor underlying various types of sexual violence. The fourth pillar expands the core model by including the secondary risk factors of lower empathy, peer support, extreme pornography use, and participation in alcohol parties. An ethnically diverse sample of 1,148 male students from 13 U.S. colleges and universities completed a comprehensive survey that assessed the hypothesized risk factors and self-reported sexual violence, which included noncontact sexual offenses, contact sexual coercion, and contact sexual aggression. A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted before testing structural equation models. The results supported the integration of the four pillars within a single expanded empirical model that accounted for 49% of the variance of sexual violence. This study yielded data supporting all four key pillars. These findings provide information about non-redudant risk factors that can be used to develop screening tools, group-based and individually tailored psychoeducational and treatment interventions.

Safer Bars: A cluster-randomized effectiveness evaluation of alcohol-related sexual violence prevention through bar staff bystander training.

BACKGROUND: Sexual assault is consistently associated with social contexts that support high levels of alcohol consumption such as alcohol-serving establishments (i.e., bars). The significant rates of alcohol-involved sexual assault among college students demonstrate the critical need for evidence-based efforts to reduce alcohol-involved sexual assault in this population. Although bystander approaches have demonstrated some promise for reducing alcohol-involved sexual assault, to date no published studies have examined the effectiveness of implementing bystander prevention approaches with bar staff. Given the robust evidence indicating that bars serve as hot spots for sexual aggression, interventions that improve bar staff's ability to identify and intervene in sexually aggressive situations may offer a useful approach for reducing rates of alcohol-involved sexual assault. METHODS: The Safer Bars study utilizes a cluster-randomized trial design that randomizes participants at the bar level into intervention and waitlist control arms. The sample includes bars (Nbars = 56) within a three-mile proximity to the three major public Arizona universities, with an average of 10 staff members per bar (Nstaff = 564). Assessments of individual-level and bar-level outcomes occur at baseline, training completion, and 3-months post-training, with an additional individual-level assessment at 6 months. Community-level effects are assessed using GIS data regarding police dispatches. CONCLUSION: Safer Bars represents a novel, theory-driven approach to promote effective bystander behavior among bar staff working in close proximity to university campuses to reduce rates of alcohol-involved sexual assault.

Feasibility and Acceptability of a Bar-Staff Bystander Intervention Training Program for Reducing Sexual Aggression.

OBJECTIVE: This paper explores the challenges, opportunities, and successes encountered in implementing Safer Bars, a bystander intervention training program to prevent sexual aggression in bars. The study aims to assess the feasibility of program implementation and its acceptability among bar staff and bar owners/managers. METHODS: Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study assessed the feasibility of Safer Bars by documenting bar participation, reasons for declination, and the time elapsed during recruitment, offering insights into experienced challenges and successes. Acceptability was gauged through post-training surveys for bar staff (N = 220) and owners/managers (N = 22), including Likert-scale questions on various aspects of the program and open-ended inquiries about the training's best aspects and potential improvements. RESULTS: Despite challenges in bar enrollment due to time constraints and financial considerations, the program demonstrated high acceptability among participating bars. Bar staff expressed confidence in applying acquired bystander skills, emphasizing the importance of skilled and knowledgeable trainers. The qualitative analysis of participant feedback revealed valuable insights into the practicality and reception of the intervention. CONCLUSION: The study provides data from implementation to guide upscaling Safer Bars. Despite feasibility challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the program showed high acceptability among bar staff and owners/managers, indicating its potential impact on addressing sexual aggression in nightlife settings. Future efforts must consider the reality of the alcohol-serving industry and focus on innovative strategies to overcome additional industry-specific barriers to enhance program feasibility.

Healing strategies of women who experienced sexual assault: A mixed method analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to identify healing strategies directly from women who experienced sexual assault and sexual exploitation. The second objective was to explore secondary themes related to healing from sexual assault. This study included two quantitative objectives. The first was to examine if the frequency of reported sexual assault experienced predicted greater coping strategies and if rape that occurred in juvenile years and during college uniquely predicted reported use of more coping strategies. METHOD: Using a mix-method design of college women who endorsed experiencing unwanted sexual contact as part of a survey, 283 provided details about healthy healing strategies. Qualitative responses were transcribed verbatim, and thematic classification followed an iterative process. Linear regressions were used to examine the relationships between sexual assault frequency and use of coping strategies. RESULTS: The most frequently endorsed categories as being helpful to one's healing were social support, proactive behavioral strategies, forgetting/ignoring/shifting focus, positive cognitive strategies, and counseling. Other themes related to healing included long-term effects, unsuccessful strategies, and posttraumatic growth. Secondary themes include validation, denial of/modified recognition of sexual assault, and specific campus environmental factors. Individuals who reported more sexual assault reported using more healing strategies. CONCLUSIONS: This study underscores the benefits of social support and specific strategies. Results suggest a positive relationship between the number of unwanted sexual experiences and coping strategies utilized. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Revised Sexual Experiences Survey Victimization Version (SES-V): Conceptualization, Modifications, Items and Scoring.

The Sexual Experiences Survey [SES] is considered the gold standard measure of non-consensual sexual experiences. This article introduces a new victimization version [SES-V] developed by a multidisciplinary collaboration, the first revision since 2007. The 2024 SES-V is designed to measure the construct of sexual exploitation since the 14th birthday. Notable revisions are adoption of a freely given permission standard for non-consent, introduction of new tactics and acts, including made to perform or to penetrate another person's body, tactics-first wording order, and emphasis on gender and sexual orientation inclusivity. The SES-V is modularized to allow whole or partial administration. Modules include Non-contact, Technology-facilitated, Illegal (largely penetrative), and Verbally pressured sexual exploitation. Tables provide item text, multiple scoring approaches, module follow-up, specific incident description and demographics. Future plans include developing a scoring algorithm based on weighting our hypothesized dimensions of sexual exploitation severity: invasiveness, pressure, and norm violation combined with frequency. This article is the first in a special issue on the SES-V. Subsequent articles focus on the taxonomies and literature that informed each module. The issue concludes with two empirical papers demonstrating the feasibility and validity of the SES-V: (1) psychometric comparison with the 2007 SES-SFV; and (2) prevalence data from a census-matched adult community sample.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Common Goals, Different Needs: Improving Communication and Collaboration Between Researchers and Practitioners to End Interpersonal Violence.

Rates of interpersonal violence have largely remained stagnant over the past three decades, despite the magnitude of prevention and response efforts to address this issue. Although interpersonal violence researchers have stressed the importance of partnerships between researchers and campus and community-based practitioners, there is still a disconnect between the work done by researchers and those engaged in direct practice in the field. This special issue brings together researchers and practitioners to explore a variety of challenges and successes in identifying common goals, building relationships, and improving strategies for addressing interpersonal violence using researcher-practitioner models.

The Scope of Rape Victimization and Perpetration Among National Samples of College Students Across 30 years.

Research Questions: Rape prevention practice and policy have roots in data from 1985. This study uses 2015 national data to project recent prevalence, assesses whether rates now differ from those of 30 years ago, and disaggregates 2015 prevalence into rape of alcohol incapacitated victims, rapes combining both alcohol and physical tactics, and violent rape. Methods: Cross-sectional analyses were conducted comparing two national samples. The first was collected in 1984-85 (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987); the second was collected 30 years later in 2014-2015. Both surveys used in-person administration and measurement by the most current version at the time of the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES). Prevalence rates were compared using Bayesian binomial tests. Results: In 2015, 33.4% (1 in 3) of women reported experiencing rape or attempted rape and 12.7% of men reported perpetration (1 in 8). Using Jeffreys' label for effect size of the Bayes binomial (1961), both results are "decisively" greater than expected given the 1985 benchmarks of 27.9% for victimization and 7.7% for perpetration. Victimization when incapacitated characterized approximately 75% of incidents in 2015 up from 50% in 1985. Cautions apply as cross-sectional data does not establish causality and the recent data set involved the revised SES. Conclusions: Across 30 years, neither containment nor reduction of rape was demonstrated and the increasingly prominent association with alcohol was apparent. Among the men who disclosed raping, 9 of 10 incidents were alcohol-involved. Prevention focus might profitably be directed to constraining alcohol environments and policies that facilitate rape of incapacitated persons and on misconduct responses that are proportional to the harm caused to rape victims, thereby raising the perceived risks of perpetration.

Knowledge of Sexual Transmission of Zika Virus Among Women Who Are Pregnant or Intend to Become Pregnant, Arizona, 2017.

OBJECTIVES: Levels of knowledge about the sexual transmission of Zika virus are consistently low in populations at risk of a mosquito-borne outbreak, including among women of childbearing age and women who are pregnant or intend to become pregnant. We investigated the effectiveness of sources of public health messaging about sexual transmission to women who are pregnant or intend to become pregnant in Arizona. METHODS: In 2017, we conducted an Arizona-statewide survey 15 months after the initial release of US guidelines on sexual transmission of Zika virus. We used Poisson regression, adjusting for demographic factors, to estimate the likelihood among women who were pregnant or intended to become pregnant of knowing that Zika virus is sexually transmitted relative to other women of childbearing age. We used multinomial logistic regression models to explore associations with most used health information sources, either in person (eg, medical providers) or online (eg, Facebook), categorized by extent of dependability. RESULTS: Women who were pregnant or intended to become pregnant had similarly poor knowledge of the sexual transmission of Zika virus as compared with other women of childbearing age (adjusted prevalence ratio = 1.14 [95% CI, 0.83-1.55]). Only about one-third of all respondents reported knowledge of sexual transmission. Reliance on high- vs low-dependability information sources, whether in person or online, did not predict the extent of Zika virus knowledge among women who were pregnant or intended to become pregnant. CONCLUSION: As late as the second year of local Zika virus transmission in the United States, in 2017, women in Arizona were not receiving sufficient information about sexual transmission, even though it was available. To prepare for possible future outbreaks, research should explore which aspects of Zika information campaigns were ineffective or inefficient.

WhatsApp-Based Focus Groups Among Mexican-Origin Women in Zika Risk Area: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Data Quality.

BACKGROUND: Despite unprecedented advances in worldwide access to the internet via smartphones, barriers to engaging hard-to-reach populations remain in many methods of health research. A potential avenue for conducting qualitative research is via participatory web-based media, including the free, popular social platform WhatsApp. However, despite the clear advantages of engaging with participants over a well-established web-based platform, logistical challenges remain. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to report evidence on the feasibility and acceptability of WhatsApp as a method to conduct focus groups. METHODS: A pilot focus group was conducted with Spanish-speaking women near the US-Mexico border. The content focus was knowledge and perceived risks for exposure to the Zika virus during pregnancy. RESULTS: Evidence was obtained regarding WhatsApp as a low-cost, logistically feasible methodology that resulted in rich qualitative data from a population that is often reticent to engage in traditional research. A total of 5 participants participated in a focus group, of whom all 5 consistently contributed to the focus group chat in WhatsApp, which was conducted over 3 consecutive days. CONCLUSIONS: The findings are noteworthy at a time when face-to-face focus groups, the gold standard, are risky or precluded by safe COVID-19 guidelines. Other implications include more applications and evaluations of WhatsApp for delivering one-on-one or group health education interventions on sensitive topics. This paper outlines the key steps and considerations for the replication or adaptation of methods.

Web-Based and mHealth Interventions for Intimate Partner Violence Victimization Prevention: A Systematic Review.

Mobile health (mHealth) technologies are increasingly used across health programming including intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention to optimize screening, educational outreach, and linkages to care via telehealth. We systematically evaluated current web-based and mHealth interventions, which include web- or mobile-based delivery methods for primary, secondary, and tertiary IPV victimization prevention. We searched MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Open Grey, and Google Scholar for empirical studies published 1998-2019. Studies were included if they considered empirical data, participants in adult romantic relationships, IPV as a primary or secondary outcome, and an mHealth component. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool was used to record critical ratings of quality among studies selected for inclusion. We assessed variation in targeted populations, types of IPV addressed, and mHealth approaches used. Of 133 studies identified for full-text review, 31 were included. Computer-based screening with or without integrated education was the most common mHealth approach (n = 8, 26%), followed by safety decision aids (n = 7, 23%). Feasibility and acceptability were found to be generally high where assessed (23% of studies, n = 7). There was limited evidence around whether mHealth interventions better addressed population needs compared to conventional interventions. mHealth tools for IPV prevention are especially acceptable in health-care settings, on mobile phone platforms, or when connecting victims to health care. Despite enthusiasm in pilot projects, evidence for efficacy compared to conventional IPV prevention approaches is limited. A major strength of mHealth IPV prevention programming is the ability to tailor interventions to individual victim needs without extensive human resource expenditure by providers.

Student views on campus sexual assault.

Objective: To report on college student opinions about the scope of college sexual misconduct (CSM), suggested university sanctions, and treatment of students found responsible of CSM. Participants: In all, 23 US undergraduate students (14 females and 9 males) with a mean age of 20 years. Methods: Students participated either in female, male, or mixed-sex focus groups that facilitated the discussion of factors related to CSM. Results: Students provided in-depth feedback on the climate on US college campuses and factors related to CSM. They agreed upon CSM risk factors and context characteristics, but raised different male and female issues across sex groups. They further provided resolute suggestions for the solution of CSM, experienced treatment barriers, and limited victim reporting. Conclusion: Student focus groups provide important information about the scope of CSM and offer valuable suggestions for the solution of the problem that may be crucial for the development of successful sexual assault interventions.

Victim voice in reenvisioning responses to sexual and physical violence nationally and internationally.

Internationally and in the United States many victims of sexual assault and domestic violence are unserved, underserved, or ill-served, especially those from the most vulnerable populations. Programs developed in the United States are routinely exported to developing countries but often without success. Notably, the failures seen internationally resemble those in the United States and are related to structural and attitudinal-cultural factors. Many victims do not disclose, and if they do seek services, they often report that available options mismatch their objectives, present accessibility challenges, disempower their pursuit of justice, and fail to augment needed resources. A deeper understanding of obstacles to effective service provision is needed if the United States is to continue to be an international partner in victim response and violence prevention. This article builds on what is known about service delivery challenges in U.S. programs to envision a path forward that concomitantly accommodates anticipation of shrinking resources, by (a) reviewing illustrative services and feedback from victims about utilizing them; (b) examining structural inequalities and the intersections of personal and contextual features that both increase vulnerability to victimization and decrease accessibility and acceptability of services; (c) advocating for reintroduction of direct victim voice into response planning to enhance reach and relevance; and (d) reorienting delivery systems, community partnerships, and Coordinated Community Response teams. The authors suggest as the way forward pairing direct victim voice with open-minded listening to expressed priorities, especially in vulnerable populations, and designing services accordingly. Through a process that prioritizes adaptation to diverse needs and cultures, U.S models can increase desirability, equity, and thrift at home as well as enhance international relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record