Depressive Symptoms Moderate Dating Violence Prevention Outcomes Among Adolescent Girls.

Purpose: Few dating violence prevention programs assess how variations in initial violence risk affects responsiveness. This study examines the efficacy of Date SMART, a dating violence and sexual risk prevention program designed to target high-risk adolescent girls, in preventing dating violence in the context of varying initial levels of depressive symptoms. Method: A diverse sample of N = 109 female adolescents with a history of physical dating violence participated in a randomized controlled trial of the Date SMART program and a knowledge only (KO) comparison. Results: Using baseline depression level as a primary risk factor, a series of multilevel models revealed significant main effects of baseline depression such that higher baseline depression was associated with greater physical dating violence perpetration and victimization. Results also showed a three-way interaction for assessment point, depressive symptoms, and condition for physical dating violence perpetration. Specifically, those with higher baseline depression in Date SMART showed significantly less physical dating violence perpetration at follow-ups compared with those with higher baseline depression in the KO group. This difference in violence reduction between conditions was not observed for those with lower baseline depression. Discussion: Date SMART appears to effectively reduce physical dating violence perpetration in those with higher levels of initial risk. Current findings support that adolescents with different risk profiles respond differently to violence prevention programs.

Perpetration of Electronic Intrusiveness Among Adolescent Females: Associations With In-Person Dating Violence.

Electronic intrusiveness is a form of cyber dating abuse that includes monitoring a partners' location, whom a partner is talking to, and other private information via technology and social networking sites. The aim of this study was to further explore the prevalence of electronic intrusiveness, as well as to assess how electronic intrusiveness relates to in-person dating violence while controlling for known risk factors for in-person dating violence, namely, depression, emotion regulation, and acceptance of couple violence. Data for this study were drawn from the baseline assessment of a larger clinical trial. A sample of high-risk adolescent females between the ages of 14 and 17 with a lifetime history of prior dating violence victimization or perpetration was used. Participants completed self-report measures for all study variables. Findings demonstrate that perpetration of electronic intrusiveness within the past 3 months is common among a sample of high-risk adolescent females, with rates across various modes of technology ranging from 30% to 57%. Results also revealed electronic intrusiveness is associated with in-person dating violence perpetration after accounting for known risk factors. This study highlights the need to increase awareness of electronic intrusiveness and to better incorporate electronic intrusiveness into theoretical and empirical models of dating violence.

Brief report: A network analysis of self-cutting risk among late adolescent girls exposed to dating violence.

Adolescent self-directed violence (SDV) is a major public health concern. Adolescent girls exposed to dating violence (DV) are a particularly vulnerable group. Numerous studies have examined the number and type of SDV risk factors, but few examined global patterns of relationships among them. Exploring global patterns of risk is crucial to developing targeted prevention efforts. In this study we applied a network model to identify risk patterns for a common form of SDV, self-cutting, among American adolescent girls (N = 109) with history of DV. Risk factor networks were compared among girls who did/did not endorse lifetime self-cutting. Girls with a history of self-cutting (19%) had a risk factor network characterized by a higher number of associations than girls who did not (test statistic = 0.142; 95% CI = 02-.03). For these girls, the experience of one risk factor is more likely to co-occur with multiple others, thereby potentially compounding effects and unwanted consequences.