Violence in the relationships of young couples: Prevalence, victimization, perpetration and bidirectionality

The objective of the work was to study the violent behaviours in the relationships of young university students, as well as the perpetration and victimization of said behaviours based on the gender of the person who exercises the violence. For this, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of students made up of 137 subjects (101 women and 36 men) with ages ranging between 18 and 25. The results indicate that verbal violence was the most frequent subtype of aggression among adolescent couples, regardless of gender. Regarding the type of physical violence -exercised as well as suffered- no significant differences were found according to gender. However, in the case of sexual assaults and controlling behaviours, significant differences were found between men and women. In general, the type of violence that was detected most frequently in this type of relationship was bidirectional, where violence is used as a way of resolving conflicts in a relationship or as a consequence of control and jealousy behaviours that were shown, regardless of the gender of the subjects.This type of research is important in order to direct violence prevention policies and ensure that they are translated into lines of action for the reduction or elimination of this criminal typology. This would convert into great benefits for direct and indirect victims, in particular, as well as for society in general.