Elsevier

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Volume 33, March–April 2017, Pages 107-125
Aggression and Violent Behavior

Dating and intimate partner violence among young persons ages 15–30: Evidence from a systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2017.01.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 169 studies met the inclusion criteria for this review.

  • 42 of the 169 studies were classified as intervention studies.

  • There are a number of promising interventions.

Abstract

While there has been much empirical research on adult dating violence, only recently has research began to also focus on young adult dating violence in general and teen dating violence specifically. With recognition of the growing research and media attention toward youth and young adult dating violence, the current study provides a systematic review of the extant literature devoted toward examinations of dating/intimate partner violence among individuals aged 15 to 30 and, more narrowly, on the prior research that has tested the effectiveness of dating/intimate partner violence interventions with this age group. Results from a comprehensive literature search of a number of existing databases revealed 169 studies that met the inclusion criteria, and 42 of these 169 studies were also characterized as intervention studies. Descriptive results are discussed for the 169 studies overall, and for the 42 intervention studies in particular in greater detail. Evidence gleaned from this systematic review revealed a number of similarities and differences between the studies in general, but also pointed toward the potential effectiveness of interventions to prevent the occurrence and re-occurrence of dating/intimate partner violence. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

Introduction

Whether it is referred to as domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or dating violence, aggression and violence in inter-personal relationships has been a key theoretical and empirical topic of interest in the social and medical sciences, as well as in the public policy arena (e.g., Sherman, 1992, Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000, Breiding et al., 2014). Not surprisingly, there is also little consensus in definitional terms—and especially in the operationalization of aggression and violence in the course of an intimate relationship, which has led research findings yielding a large range of prevalence (of violence) estimates as well as risk factors associated with violence perpetration and violence victimization across gender, age range, and relationship type. Yet, despite this variability in definitions, measurement, prevalence, and risk factors, ample attention has also been paid toward the development of prevention and intervention strategies and policies aimed at curbing victimization and to a lesser extent perpetration. Once again, unsurprisingly, the range of such programs is wide and variable with regard to age range, treatment curriculum, and level of curriculum (community-based, school-based, counselor-based), in addition to at times being aimed at males and other times females.

This information notwithstanding, one key limitation of the literature on dating/intimate partner violence has been its near exclusive focus on adult samples, thereby limiting the knowledge accrued on this topic among adolescents and young adults. Accordingly, in this paper, we report the results of a comprehensive and systematic review of youth and young adult dating/intimate partner violence as well as reviewing interventions aimed at reducing such violence among individuals ages 15–30.

Section snippets

Methodology

Consistent with prior systematic reviews (Jennings and Reingle, 2012, Jennings et al., 2012, Piquero et al., 2012), the search strategy for the systematic review is as follows. We first performed a keyword search (using terms such as dating violence, intimate partner violence, and domestic violence) across a number of different databases including Criminal Justice Abstracts, National Criminal Justice Reference Services, Psych Info, EBSCO, etc. to locate articles that were potentially relevant

Descriptive results from the 169 studies

A detailed description of the name of the author/s, publication year, geographic location, sample, measures, analytic techniques, age of sample, and the main findings for the 169 studies can be found in Table 1.

Publication year, geographic location, sample and age characteristics (n = 169)

Overall, the year of publication ranged from 1981 (Makepeace, 1981) to 2015 (Boladale et al., 2015, Bradley, 2015, Cornelius et al., 2015, Diaz-Aguado and Martinez, 2015, Edwards et al., 2015, Kaukinen et al., 2015), although greater than two-thirds of the studies were published since

Intervention studies (n = 42)

As reported earlier, 42 of the 169 identified studies were classified as dating/intimate partner violence intervention studies. Specifically, the study had to be an evaluation of a specific intervention and not based on a secondary analysis of data that was collected from an intervention study. A detailed description of the name of the author/s and publication year for these 42 intervention studies can be found in Table 2, along with information broadly categorizing the type of intervention

Discussion

This paper carried out a comprehensive and systematic review on research articles focused on dating/intimate partner violence among individuals aged 15 to 30 as well as a more specific analysis of prior research testing the effectiveness of dating/intimate partner violence interventions within this under-studied age group. Results from a comprehensive literature search including 169 studies—of which 42 were also characterized as intervention studies, revealed several key conclusions.

First, with

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