Binational study on partner aggression in university students

Abstract

This research assesses violence in university students couples from Argentina and Ecuador. It focuses on its association with jealousy and other variables. Seven hundred and fourteen students (528 from the National University of La Plata,Argentina, and 186 students from the University of Cuenca, Ecuador) were surveyed using a cross cutting design. The measures used were Conflict in Adolescents Dating Relationships Inventory, Multidimensional Jealousy Scaleand other ad hoc methods related to faithfulness, substance use, and stress during dating relationship. A predominance of verbal/emotional violence was found, and 3.8% of the participants had high values in total abuse and more than half reported having committed at least one physical act against his/her partner. In a logistic regression model, it walso verified that belonging to the group of high violence was positive and significantly associated with factors behavioral jealousy, cognitive jealousy, stress and substance use and negative and significantly associated with the age at the beginning of the relationship.