Measurement Tools to Assess Relationship Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention Program Effectiveness Among Youth.

Objective: This article describes the adaptation, development, and psychometric properties of survey instruments to assess outcomes of bystander-focused violence prevention efforts among high school students, including media literacy, rape myths, bystander readiness, bystander barriers and facilitators of bystander action, bystander intentions, perceptions of school personnel helping, perceptions of peer helping, and victim empathy.

Method: The study was based on data collected from 3,172 high school students across 25 schools in northern New England.

Results: Overall, the measures demonstrated acceptable fit indices in multilevel exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

Preventing Teen Relationship Abuse and Sexual Assault through Bystander Training: Intervention Outcomes for School Personnel.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of exposure to Bringing in the Bystander-High School Curriculum (BITB-HSC) on school personnel, which included a seven session classroom curriculum for ninth through twelfth graders (student curriculum), a bystander training workshop for school personnel (school personnel workshop), and reading materials (handout). We examined how exposure to these various BITB-HSC intervention components was associated with school personnel's knowledge and bystander efficacy, intentions, and barriers specific to student relationship abuse (RA) and sexual assault (SA). Participants were 488 school personnel from 12 high schools in upper New England who completed the 4-month follow-up survey that assessed for intervention exposure (284 participants completed both the baseline and follow-up survey).

Patterns of Violence Victimization and Perpetration Among Adolescents Using Latent Class Analysis.

Research has identified interpersonal violence (a broad term that includes stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and physical dating violence) as a major problem among adolescents. Research suggests that there are different patterns, or classes, of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration, but little of this work has focused on adolescents. In the current study, we conducted latent class analysis using a sample of 2,921 adolescent girls and boys in high school from northern New England to assess varying patterns of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration over the past 2 months, specifically stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and dating violence.

School Personnel's Bystander Action in Situations of Teen Relationship Abuse and Sexual Assault: Prevalence and Correlates.

Background: Relationship abuse (RA) and sexual assault (SA) are major problems among high school students, and school personnel are an important part of preventing RA and SA among youth. Therefore, we examined the rates and correlates of bystander intentions among school personnel in situations of RA and SA.

Methods: School personnel (N = 1150) from 25 high schools in New England completed surveys that assessed their RA and SA knowledge, perceptions of school climate specific to RA and SA, and RA and SA bystander efficacy and bystander intentions.

Youth Strategies for Positive Bystander Action in Situations of Dating and Sexual Violence: Implications for Measurement and Programming.

Research on bystander behavior in situations of dating violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) in youth populations is growing; yet, there is a distinct lack of qualitative studies to identify nuances in specifically how and when youth are taking action to help to inform theory, measurement, and programming. The current study examined bystander action plans of high school youth after their participation in a classroom-based, bystander-focused prevention program, to inform bystander behavior measurement and programming within the context of DV and SV research and practice. High school youth ( = 889) from schools across New England completed a bystander-focused violence prevention curriculum and subsequently wrote a bystander plan of action addressing a situation of DV or SV that they had seen before or were likely to see again in the future.

Evaluation of a Bystander-Focused Interpersonal Violence Prevention Program with High School Students.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a seven-session, bystander-focused, classroom-delivered curriculum (i.e., Bringing in the Bystander-High School Curriculum [BITB-HSC]) in reducing rates of interpersonal violence among high school students.

Bidirectional IPV Among Adolescent Sexual Minorities.

Research repeatedly concludes that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (i.e., sexual minorities) are at increased risk of experiencing abuse in a romantic or sexual relationship.

Development and Psychometrics of Instruments to Assess School Personnel's Bystander Action in Situations of Teen Relationship Abuse and Sexual Assault.

This article describes recently developed instruments that assess school personnel's bystander barriers and intentions in situations of teen relationship abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, as well as perceptions of school readiness specific to relationship abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment prevention and response. Participants were 1,150 high school personnel from 25 schools in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. Specific instruments focused on bystander intentions, bystander action, barriers to bystander action, and perceptions of school readiness.

Rape Myth Acceptance in Sexually Assaulted Adolescents' School Contexts: Associations with Depressed Mood and Alcohol Use.

High school students exposed to sexual assault (SA) are at risk for negative outcomes like depressed mood and high-risk drinking. Although evidence suggests that both social contexts and internalized stigma can affect recovery from SA, no research to date has directly examined the presence of stigma in social contexts such as high schools as a correlate of adjustment after SA. In this study, the self-reported rape myth acceptance (RMA) of 3080 students from 97 grade cohorts in 25 high schools was used to calculate grade-mean and school-mean RMA, which was entered into multilevel models predicting depressed mood and alcohol use among N = 263 SA survivors within those schools.

Diagnostic field reliability in forensic mental health evaluations.

How likely are multiple forensic evaluators to agree on defendants' diagnoses in routine forensic mental health evaluations? A total of 720 evaluation reports were examined from 240 cases in which 3 evaluators, working independently, provided diagnoses for the same defendant. Results revealed perfect agreement across 6 independent diagnostic categories in 18.3% of cases.