title: Multiple online victimization of Spanish adolescents: Results from a community sample.
abstract: Little is known about online victimization of Spanish adolescents. The present study aims to determine the past-year prevalence of online victimization in a community sample of Spanish adolescents. The final sample consisted of 3,897 adolescents between 12 and 17 years old (M=14.45, SD=1.59), 1,836 males and 2,049 females, recruited from 39 secondary schools in the east of Spain. The Cuestionario de victimización juvenil mediante internet y/o teléfono móvil (hereinafter, Juvenile Online Victimization Questionnaire, JOV-Q, Montiel & Carbonell, 2012) was applied for the assessment of eight types of online victimization grouped in two major domains: sexual (sexual coercion, sexual pressure, online grooming by an adult, unwanted exposure to sexual content and violation of privacy); and nonsexual victimization (online harassment, happy slapping, pressure to obtain personal information). Sixty-one percent of adolescents reported online victimization during the last year. Online sexual victimization was reported by 39.5% of adolescents and nonsexual victimization by 53.4% of them, whereas 31% of youth reported having experienced online victimization in both domains. The highest prevalence rates were recorded for online harassment (50%), unwanted exposure to sexual content (24.4%), pressure to obtain personal information (18.4%) and online grooming by an adult (17.2%), and the lowest for sexual coercion (6.7%) and happy slapping (2.2%). Thirty-five percent of the adolescents were considered online polyvictims and most of them experienced victimization in both sexual and nonsexual domains (88%). This study illustrates that Spanish adolescents experience high levels of online victimization and that multiple online victimization appears to be the norm among cybervictims.
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Criminologia i Ciències Penals (IU d'ICCP), Universitat de València, Spain.
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Montiel
authors.affiliation: Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Criminologia i Ciències Penals (IU d'ICCP), Universitat de València, Spain.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Carbonell
authors.affiliation: Grup de Recerca en Victimització Infantil i Adolescent (GReVIA), Institut de Recerca en Cervell, Cognició i Conducta (IR3C), Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Noemí
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pereda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D000071277:Harassment, Non-Sexual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D017678:Sex Distribution; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Adolescents; Developmental victimology; Internet; Multiple online victimization; Spain