Individual Mental Health, Dating Relationship Characteristics, and Dating Abuse: A Longitudinal Path Analysis

• In Event: Consequences of Adolescent Relationship Abuse

Abstract

Exner-Cortens (2014) highlighted the potentially bidirectional relationship between internalizing symptoms and relationship qualities posited by Sullivan’s interpersonal theory (1953) as a complex outcome of dating abuse victimization. Data come from three waves of the national Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV). The study sample is n=266 youth (ages 10-18) in dating relationships at all three waves. Significant effects in multivariable analyses confirmed a negative correlation between baseline internalizing behaviors and perceptions of communications awkwardness. Among the baseline relationship characteristics, only the measure of controlling behaviors predicted wave 2 victimization. Baseline internalizing symptoms were not associated with victimization at follow-up. Wave 2 victimization significantly predicted subsequent internalizing symptoms and was negatively associated with subsequent intimate self-disclosure. We found evidence of an association between internalizing symptoms and select dating relationship qualities, supporting theory that depression would be related to romantic partnership intimacy. Use of these longitudinal data to understand how individual mental health and the relationship qualities of the intimate partnership correlate contemporaneously, the extent to which they function as predictors of subsequent victimization, and the extent to which they are a consequence of relationship victimization may be instructive for both clinical services and prevention programming.

Authors

• Elizabeth A. Mumford, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Bruce G Taylor, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Weiwei Liu, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Peggy C Giordano, Bowling Green State University