Gender Differences in Intimate Partner Violence Among College Students, Survivors' Help-Seeking, and Outcomes

Background:

Many college students experience intimate partner violence (IPV) and suffer numerous health and behavioral consequences of IPV. It is critical to prevent and intervene in IPV to reduce both negative consequences of IPV and the likelihood of future victimization. The literature on IPV and survivors’ help-seeking shows gender differences for all aspects of IPV, such as types of IPV, consequences, and help-seeking behaviors. However, previous study results are often limited due to small samples, inclusion of only certain types of IPV, and not including the help-seeking outcome measures. This study fills this gap by using a relatively big dataset to examine gender differences in IPV, help-seeking, and its outcomes.

Methods:

We collected data from six universities in the U.S. using a cross-sectional survey in 2016. The study sample consisted of 3,070 undergraduate students who had been in romantic relationships. Major variables were IPV victimization, IPV consequences, help-seeking and its outcomes. We used five types of IPV victimization (threats, physical, sexual, technological, and psychological violence), and three types of IPV consequences (physical health, mental health, and social impairments). Help-seeking included formal and informal help. We controlled for gender, race, depression, and perceived health status. We conducted chi-square and t-tests for bivariate data analyses.

Results:

Nearly 62% of students experienced at least one type of IPV. Females reported higher rates of being victimized in all types of IPV than males, except in psychological violence where female and male showed similar rates. Of the five IPV types, sexual violence showed the biggest gender difference; 47% of females and 14% of males reported to be sexually victimized. IPV survivors reported poorer health status and higher levels of depression than those who did not experience IPV victimization; such differences in health status and depression level were much greater for females than males. Regarding IPV consequences, female survivors reported greater physical/mental health and social impairments than males. Female survivors used more formal help than males. Most female and male survivors used informal help. When survivors used formal help, more females (46%) than males (26%) reported it being helpful. Inversely, when survivors used informal help, more males (87%) reported that it was helpful than females (87%).

Conclusions:

Female survivors suffer more, but there is a significant number of male survivors too. While campus service providers have to keep striving to provide high quality services for female student survivors, they also need to exert much effort to make the services available for male student survivors. Both females and males sought more informal help than formal help after experiencing IPV victimization. Educational and communicative programs need to be developed and utilized targeting such informal help (e.g., family and friends/bystanders as sources). There are gender differences in perceived helpfulness of the help used. Future research needs to examine what aspects, and processes, of help-seeking are perceived by the survivors being helpful or not, and how gender plays its role in the relationships.