title: Peer sexual harassment: a barrier to the health of adolescent females?
abstract: Despite increasing societal concern about sexual harassment in the workplace and in academia, to date sexual harassment has been neglected by nurses as a health issue among adolescents. Sexual harassment includes a wide range of unwelcome sexually oriented and gender-offensive behaviours that contribute to a hostile environment. Although the research is limited and lacking in rigour, early findings, along with evidence abstracted from the workplace-harassment and stress and coping literature, suggest that peer sexual harassment may adversely affect young women's mental and physical health, health-related behaviours, and future relationships. The author makes recommendations for further sexual-harassment research, specific to the adolescent population, based on a conceptual framework derived from the transactional stress and coping literature.
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Dahinten
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008603:Mental Health; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010379:Peer Group; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology; D016387:Women's Health