Teen dating violence and teens’ self-efficacy for helping and help-seeking behaviour

Teen dating violence (DV) is an important public health issue. It is highly prevalent and can have serious consequences, such as internalizing and externalizing problems and higher risk for revictimization. Prevention initiatives aim to encourage help-seeking behaviour among potential victims and offenders. Due to the great importance of and reliance on peers in adolescence, DV prevention initiatives should also involve a focus on peers as potential informal helpers and aim to raise awareness among peer bystanders. A few of such prevention strategies are being implemented and center on the willingness and ability of peers to safely and effectively act prior, during or after DV incidents against others. In this paper, we explore the perceived ability of adolescents to deal with dating violence against themselves or others and to verify whether self-efficacy to deal with DV is associated with gender and self-reported history of DV. We draw upon quantitative data collected among 259 14-18 year olds in Quebec, Canada. Results reveal a significant difference in scores for boys and girls for helping behaviour and help-seeking behaviour. Girls feel most confident to encourage a victim of DV to talk to someone they trust, while boys feel most confident they could directly intervene when they witness someone being hit. Generally, participants seem more confident to help someone else than to seek help for oneself. The findings suggest that dating violence prevention can build on teens’ self-efficacy to deal with dating violence and offer the necessary cues for the design and implementation of effective prevention initiatives.