Dating violence is a serious problem affecting many college students' health worldwide. The purpose of this study was to examine the incidence and prevalence of dating violence among college students in Taiwan.

Method

The study design was a descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional study. A convenient sample of college students were recruited from two colleges in the central and southern Taiwan. The Conflict Tactic Scale II Taiwanese version was used for data collection. Dating violence was categorized into four types of violence: assault, injury, psychological aggression, and sexual coercion with two levels of severity, minor or severe, for each type.

Results

A total of 316 questionnaires were used for the analyses. Most participants were female (69%), and aged between 18 and 29. About 75% participants reported having experienced some forms of dating violence. Some of them reported experiencing more than one form of violence. The highest frequent type of violence they experienced was psychological aggression (75%) followed by assault (49%). About 81% of participants were victims and perpetrators at the same time. Expect for sexual coercion, females were the dominant perpetrators for the rest of violence types. The gravity of the problem of male's being the silent victims cannot be overlooked. .

Conclusions

The results of this study provides a valuable insight of the problem of dating violence among college students in Taiwan. Dating violence often precedes domestic violence. Understanding of the prevalence and dynamics in an abusive relatoinship in the dating stage can help develop an intervention program to prevent domestic violence.