Abstract: How Do Adverse Childhood Experiences Affect Dating Violence and the Survivors' Help-Seeking Among College Students? (Society for Social Work and Research 22nd Annual Conference - Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice)

Schedule:

Friday, January 12, 2018: 8:00 AM

Capitol (ML4) (Marriott Marquis Washington DC)

* noted as presenting author

Hyunkag Cho, PhD, Associate Professor, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Jisuk Seon, MSW, Doctoral student, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Ilan Kwon, MSW, Doctoral Candidate, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Jae-Bum Han, MA, Doctoral student, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Background:

Research on dating violence (DV) survivors’ help-seeking shows that active help-seeking has positive effects on their physical and mental health, and reduces the likelihood of revictimization. There is a large variation in the survivors’ help-seeking behaviors, affected by many factors, including adverse childhood experiences (ACE), such as child abuse and neglect. It is troubling that many survivors who could benefit from the range of help, such as formal (e.g., police and health care) and informal help (e.g., friends and family), do not seek help, increasing their risks for poor health outcomes and revictimization. Although a growing body of literature focuses on the relationship between DV and ACE, there is little research on the effects of ACE on help-seeking. This study fills this gap by using a recent college student survey to examine whether, and how, ACE affects DV, DV affects help-seeking, and ACE affects help-seeking.

Methods:

We collected data from three universities in the U.S. and one in Canada through a cross-sectional survey in 2016. The study sample consisted of 2,178 undergraduate students who had been in romantic relationships and reported DV victimization. Major variables were help-seeking, DV, and ACE. Help-seeking was measured by 14 items, including formal and informal help; DV by 12 items, including physical and psychological violence; ACE by 21 items, including community and peer victimization, child abuse and neglect, and exposure to domestic violence. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted for measurement models; structural equation modeling (SEM) for structural models, using SPSS Amos v.21.

Results:

The proposed measurement models produced an appropriate fit to the data (CFI = .909, NFI= .906, RMSEA = .069), with the factor loadings from .50 to .82 for ACE, and from .66 to .78 for DV. The proposed structural models, including ACE, DV, and help-seeking, showed an adequate fit to the data (CFI = .907, NFI=.903, RMSEA = .061). The model estimation revealed positive relationships between ACE and DV (ß=.31, p<.001), and between DV and help-seeking (ß=.22, p<.001). The direct impact of ACE on help-seeking was also statistically significant (ß= .13, p<.05). Consequently, it was revealed that DV partially mediated the effects of ACE on help-seeking.

Conclusions:

The study findings indicate that students with ACE are more likely to experience higher levels of DV and seek help after DV. These results provide the implications for practice as well as research. As ACE affects DV, service providers need to improve their services toward trauma-informed services to better assess and serve the survivors. While it is encouraging that those with ACE seek help after DV, we do not know the mechanisms and contexts of such relationships. Future research needs to address it by taking consideration of what happened after ACE (e.g., help-seeking and its outcomes) and further examining the relationships among ACE, help-seeking after ACE, DV victimization, and help-seeking after DV.