Description
Teen relationship violence (TRV) is a serious problem that is associated with numerous negative consequences that include depression, substance abuse, poor school performance, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Centers for Disease Control, 2013). Researchers examining risk factors associated with TRV have focused on individual factors (e.g., acceptance of violence beliefs) and family factors (e.g., exposure to interparental conflict, harsh parenting), but fewer studies have examined peer influences (i.e., perceptions of peer TRV) in addition to these individual and family factors over time. The research objective was to examine the joint predictive ability of several time one risk factors across individual, family, and peer contexts, and to identify the risk factors that are most predictive of later TRV when accounting for the predictive ability of other risk factors. The specific risk factors examined were: acceptance of violence, exposure to interparental conflict, harsh parenting, and perception of peer TRV to determine the predictability of perpetration of teen relationship violence. Two hundred and four participants (93 boys, 111 girls) were recruited from 7th, 9th, and 11th-grade classes in a middle and high school in south San Diego County. Students ranged in age from 12 to 17 years, and 75% were Latinos. They completed surveys twice over a 10-month period; surveys assessed perpetration of TRV, acceptance of couple violence beliefs, exposure to interparental conflict, exposure to harsh parenting and perceptions of peer TRV. Regression analyses revealed that the perception of peer TRV and harsh parenting were significant predictors of TRV 10 months later. Implications for schoolbased prevention programs targeting educators and parents of ethnically diverse middle school and high school-aged youth are discussed.
