Dating violence among urban, minority, middle school youth and associated sexual risk behaviors and substance use.

Background: Whereas dating violence among high school students has been linked with sexual risk-taking and substance use, this association has been understudied among early adolescents. We estimated the prevalence of physical and nonphysical dating violence in a sample of middle school students and examined associations between dating violence, sexual, and substance use behaviors.

Methods: Logistic regression models for clustered data from 7th grade students attending 10 Texas urban middle schools were used to examine cross-sectional associations between dating violence victimization and risk behaviors.

Results: The sample (N = 950) was 48.5% African American, 36.0% Hispanic, 55.7% female, mean age 13.1 years (SD 0.64). About 1 in 5 reported physical dating violence victimization, 48.1% reported nonphysical victimization, and 52.6% reported any victimization. Adjusted logistic regression analyses indicated that physical, nonphysical, and any victimization was associated with ever having sex, ever using alcohol, and ever using drugs.

Conclusions: Over 50% of sampled middle school students had experienced dating violence, which may be associated with early sexual initiation and substance use. Middle school interventions that prevent dating violence are needed.