Evaluation of a School-Based Dating Violence Prevention Program: A Community-Based Partnership Study

Introduction: Unfortunately, violence and aggression characterize many teen dating relationships: up to 45% of female adolescents and 43% of male adolescents report physical dating violence (DV) victimization (O’Keefe & Treister, 1998). Adolescents often remain in violent relationships over time (O’Leary & Slep, 2003), and report similar DV experiences across partnerships (Cano et al., 1998). However, a review of the literature (Whitaker et al., 2006) suggests that there are limited primary DV prevention programs appropriate for implementation in schools. The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a widely disseminated community-based DV prevention program. The study was conducted in partnership with a non-profit community agency dedicated to DV education. The agency designed a brief five-session curriculum that addresses attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors believed to be related to the development of violent relationships. This program has been taught to over 3,000 students across 10 school districts, but has not previously been the subject of research to evaluate its efficacy.

Methods: The study design was a quasi-randomized control trial: half of the 10^th grade classrooms were randomized to receive the five-session DV prevention program (active condition), and half were randomized to receive their usual health class curriculum (control condition). 580 10^th grade students in 24 health class sections at a large public high school in New England were eligible to participate in the study, with 420 students providing data for the final sample (231 active, 169 control). Surveys were administered to all students at baseline, the end of the program, and three months after the end of the program. These surveys assessed demographics, DV attitudes and knowledge, DV victimization and perpetration, and health risk behaviors. Following completion of the research study, the control group received the DV prevention program.

Results: Students who received the DV prevention program reported significant changes in terms of knowledge, attitudes and behavior in comparison with students in the control group. Students who received the DV prevention program had higher scores on the relationship violence knowledge scale 3 months after completing the program. Active group students also reported less approval of aggression after three months on measures of general and retaliatory aggression. Regarding DV attitudes, prevention program students reported less acceptance of both male and female violence perpetration than did control students after three months. Finally, a decline in average DV perpetration in the active condition between baseline and the three-month follow-up was significant at the trend level, whereas the control group mean for perpetration went up during this period.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that a community-based DV prevention can promote change in attitudes and knowledge among high school students. The trend-level difference in DV perpetration is especially promising because behavior change is difficult to detect with brief, universal interventions.