THE PREVALENCE OF DATING VIOLENCE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

This article conducts a systematic review on the prevalence of dating violence in adolescents and young people. Primary studies about physical, psychological and sexual dating violence (perpetration and victimization) were analyzed. A total of 1,221 references were found and, out of those, 113 met the pre-established quality criteria (studies had to have used assessment tolos with evidence of reliability and validity, in samples over 500 participants or obtained through probabilistic sampling). The results showed a great variability of figures on the prevalence of dating violence. Specifically, the percentages range from 3.8% to 41.9% in perpetrated physical violence; from 0.4% to 57.3% in victimized physical violence; from 4.2% to 97% in perpetrated psychological violence; from 8.5% to 95.5% in victimized psychological violence; from 1.2% to 58.8% in perpetrated sexual violence; and finally, from 0.1% to 64.6% in victimized sexual violence. The results suggest a higher prevalence in the perpetration of psychological aggression by women and sexual violence by men; greater psychological and sexual victimization in women; and slightly higher rates of aggression in adolescents than in young adults. Also, in many of the papers the aggression had a bidirectional nature.

Keywords

• Dating violence
• Adolescents
• Prevalence
• Systematic review.