CO-Occurrence of PHYSICAL and Psychological DATING Violence AMONG Adolescents In Recife, Brazil: PREVALENCE and ASSOCIATED FACTORS

The objectives were to describe the prevalence of physical and psychological dating violence among adolescents from Recife, Brazil, to identify associated factors and the co-occurrence of both violence types. Adolescents in public and private school, participated of the study filling out the questionnaire. Only data of 302 adolescents with age between 15 and 19 years and that had any dating relationship in the last year were included. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression statistical analysis were performed and all entered the sample weight and the complex sample design. The prevalence of perpetration of physical violence was 19,9%, 82,8% for psychological violence and 18,9% for the co-occurrence of physical and psychological violence. Teenagers who have experienced violence in the community and who were in dating relationships of more than one year duration were more likely to perpetrate psychological violence. For the co-occurrence of physical and psychological violence, the variables that increased the chance of perpetration were: to suffer father's physical violence, violence among siblings, to suffer physical dating violence in previous relationships and perpetration of verbal violence in previous relationships. It is concluded that psychological violence and co-occurrence of physical and psychological violence have a distinct dynamics of physical violence in dating relationships. The results indicate that despite different dynamic between the two forms of violence, the co-occurrence requires specific preventive measures that act on the dynamics of the couple.