Epidemiology of mutual conflict in adolescent and young adult dating relationships

We surveyed 645 women, aged 15-24 years who presented to an urban reproductive clinic to estimate the occurrence of physical and sexual victimization in the last year. Using an audio computer assisted interview, each woman was asked to report on the number of episodes that she perpetrated and received physical and/or sexual violence. A greater proportion of women reported perpetrating physical (31.7%) and threatening (41.9%) violence when compared to the proportion who reported experiencing victimization (physical: 22%, threatening: 29.3%). However, fewer numbers of women reported perpetrating sexual violence (14.9 %) compared to experiencing sexual victimization (20.9 %). Of most interest, we found that many of these young women were involved in both the delivery and receipt of violence in their relationships. That is, 2.6% of subjects reported only physical victimization, 12.3% reported only physical perpetration, whereas, 19.4% of women reported both behaviors. Regarding sexual violence, 10.2 % reported only victimization, 4.2% reported perpetration only, and 10.7% participated in both. Since our survey only measured frequency of violent behaviors, it precluded us from investigating injury severity, the specific roles of each partner, or the sequence of events. The presentation will consider the influence of age, ethnicity gender, and history of family violence on the prevalence of either experiencing or perpetrating violence.

This survey contributes to other recently published data establishing that both partners are involved in violent or coercive actions in adolescent and young adult dating relationships.