Dating it Safe (Longitudinal)
The purpose of the NIH and NIJ- funded Dating it Safe study is to examine the longitudinal risk and protective factors of dating violence (or adolescent relationship abuse). A sample of 1,042 high school students were recruited from seven public high schools and assessed as freshman/sophomore high school students in 2010 and have been assessed annually.
This study has already generated some of the first data demonstrating
- a temporal link between substance use and domestic violence (DV),
- the intergenerational link between witnessing mother-to-father violence and DV perpetration and victimization(in press),
- the importance of considering sexual orientation in examining DV,
- the association between DV and borderline personality disorder,
- teen sexting and sexual behaviors, including a longitudinal association,
- the course and stability of DV over time,
- a longitudinal relationship between DV and risky sexual behavior among females,
- that sexual minority youth report higher levels of borderline features than heterosexual youth,
- a prospective relationship between between avoidance of internal states and borderline features in adolescents, and
- the role of parental closeness in mediating the relationship between problematic parental substance and adolescent substance use.