title: Violence in adolescents' romantic relationships: findings from a survey amongst school-going youth in a South African community.
abstract: This paper reports on a study of heterosexual adolescent dating violence among secondary school students in a South African community. Approximately half of the surveyed males, and just over half of the surveyed females reported involvement in a physically violent dating relationship either as a perpetrator and/or victim. The study found significant associations between the beliefs about violence in a romantic relationship, the witnessing of physical violence in friendship contexts, the use of alcohol and adolescent dating violence. A significant association between familial variables and adolescent dating violence was only found for male participants. No significant association was found between religious participation and adolescent dating violence. The implications for prevention are discussed in an attempt to demonstrate the potential of local information that identifies risk factors for the development of appropriate community- and schools-based intervention programmes.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa, Lenasia 1820, South Africa. swartl@unisa.ac.za
authors.forename: Lu-Anne
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Swart
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Seedat
authors.forename: Garth
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stevens
authors.forename: Izabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ricardo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D003380:Courtship; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011902:Rape / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013019:South Africa; D014754:Violence / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data