Original articleLong-Term Impact of Adolescent Dating Violence on the Behavioral and Psychological Health of Male and Female Youth
Section snippets
Design, Setting, and Participants
Data were drawn from Project EAT, an epidemiologic study of adolescent eating behaviors and weight-related issues with 2 waves of data collection 5 years apart (wave 1 in 1999 and wave 2 in 2004; mean age, 20.4 years; SD = 0.8).17, 18 Project EAT participants were from 31 public middle and high schools in urban and suburban school districts in the greater St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, area; participants were diverse by age, race, body mass index, and socioeconomic status. In wave 1,
Results
Overall, 23 male and 102 female respondents reported ADV greater than 1 year ago. There were no significant differences in ADV by race or socioeconomic status.
Discussion
In this study, adolescent dating violence was found to be a nonspecific risk factor for behavioral and psychological health concerns, primarily among female youth. The lack of significant findings for male youth may be due to the small number of males affected by ADV, yielding low power to detect associations in sex-stratified analyses. Our findings are consistent with the many cross-sectional studies that have found that those who report ADV also report a myriad of health concerns.1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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Cited by (0)
Supported by a grant (R40 MC 00319-02; D.N-S., principal investigator) from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Title V, Social Security Act), Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. The funding agency supported the collection and analysis of the data; study design, interpretation of data analyses, writing of the report, and submission decisions are the sole responsibility of the authors.