Dating violence and its relationship with anxiety, depression, and stress in young Andalusian university students

Abstract

Aim: To analyze the prevalence of dating violence (DV) and its relationship with states of depression, anxiety, and stress in young Andalusian university students.

Method: Cross-sectional descriptive quantitative study in 8 public universities in Andalusia. Data collection was carried out from September to November 2020 through a self-administered questionnaire that included sociodemographic variables and variables related to dating violence, depression, anxiety, and stress. For the analysis of the data, descriptive and nonparametric tests were performed through the U Mann-Whitney and Spearman Rho for the relationship between variables.

Results: Thousand ninety-one young university students from Andalusia participated. The most prevalent DV was psychological, including behaviors related to cyberbullying, control-surveillance and psychoemotional (68.42-42.90%), followed by sexual (16.68-3.57%) and finally physical (5.60-1.92%). Statistically significant differences were shown according to sex and DV, where girls scored higher in being victims of behaviors related to cyberbullying, control-surveillance and sexual, and boys in perpetrating psycho-emotional, physical and sexual violence. All types of DV showed significant and positive correlations with depression, anxiety, and stress, except physical DV perpetrated with stress.

Conclusions: The high prevalence of DV and its relationship with mental health show the importance of conducting research on this line in the educational field, since it is a space that guarantees egalitarian relationships and promotes health.

Keywords: Adulto joven; Intimate partner violence; Mental health; Salud mental; Universidades; Universities; Violencia íntima de pareja; Young adult.