Longitudinal Follow-up in the National Survey of Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV), Final Summary Overview

Date

2018

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

National Institute of Justice

Abstract

Researchers, practitioners and policymakers are increasingly paying closer attention to the problem of teens experiencing relationships violence also known as adolescent relationship abuse (ARAa). To provide more data on the extent and nature of ARA, adolescent and parent attitudes regarding gender roles and relationship behavior, and the family and peer context in which ARA may occur, we developed the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV). STRiV was the first comprehensive national household survey dedicated specifically to the topic of ARA, using detailed measures of ARA and covering perpetration as well as victimization. With funding from the National Institute of Justice (Grant # 2011-WG-BX-0020; STRiV-A), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, the study began enrolling its first STRiV participants in October 2013. By the conclusion of the first wave of data collection, we collected completed surveys from a weighted sample of 2,354 youth 10-18 years old and a brief survey of a parent or caregiver (PCG) of the STRiV youth. In October 2014, the baseline respondents were invited to participate in a second survey, resulting in a weighted sample of 1,471 wave 2 completes (62.5% of the 2,354 original PCG-child dyads). This report covers the third and fourth waves of data collection with the original STRiV cohort. These two waves (STRiV-B) were designed to provide information to increase the field’s understanding of the changing nature of adolescent and young adult dating relationships, particularly those marked by abuse, to inform the development of more effective prevention efforts. STRiV-B was designed to capture developments in adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) from earlier periods of adolescence to young adulthood and to identify ARA risk factors informing intervention efforts sensitive to gender, developmental, and contextual characteristics. The specific aims of this follow-up study were to (1a) Document temporal shifts in various forms of ARA from 2013 to 2016 through an updated national portrait; and (1b) Investigate the longitudinal development of ARA victimization and perpetration, assessing escalation/desistance at the individual level and capturing patterns of ARA behavior among youth (ages 10-18 at wave 1; 13-21 at wave 4). Aim 1 addressed the gap in the field in that no national data sets were available to inform whether ARA patterns were relatively stable across time or whether specific forms were increasing/decreasing in prevalence. Further research aims were to (2) Examine the context of ARA experiences (e.g., in terms of relationship characteristics, attitudes, and family and peer network dynamics, as well as polyviolence experiences); and to (3) Explore models of ARA that draw on key concepts derived from social learning theory, feminist theory, and social network theory

Description

Keywords

teen dating violence, data, parenting, gender roles, longitudinal, prevention

Citation

Taylor, B. G., Mumford, E. A., & Liu, W. (2016). The national survey of teen relationships and intimate violence (STRiV). National Institute of Justice Report.

DOI