Effectiveness of a Safety App to Respond to Dating Violence for College Women and Their Friends

Summary

Intimate partner violence (IPV), including violence in dating relationships (dating violence, DV) is a widespread and serious public health problem. Among U.S. female IPV survivors, 47.1% report their first abusive relationship occurred at college age (age 18-24). Similarly, in national surveys, adults respondents 18-24 years of age report the highest rate of stalking victimization, most commonly by a former intimate partner. Safety planning is the most widely used intervention to prevent and respond to IPV, yet the vast majority of abused women never access safety planning services. Our challenge is to increase college women's access to safety planning, with the opportunity to consider their unique safety priorities and level of danger during and when ending an abusive relationship. In addition, while "bystander" interventions that train peers to safely intervene have been shown to be effective in sexual assault prevention on campus, and college women in abusive relationships most frequently disclose IPV to a friend, no similar interventions have been tested with friends for IPV response on campuses. Therefore, the objective of the study is to evaluate the:

1. effectiveness of an interactive, personalized smart phone and web based safety application ("App") intervention in Maryland and Oregon with: 1) college women (age 18-24) who experience IPV and 2) friends (age 18-24) of women experiencing IPV. The safety decision App allows the user to enter information on: a) relationship health; b) safety priorities; and c) severity of violence/danger in relationship. The App then uses the information to provide the user with a personalized safety planning information and resources; and
2. dissemination of the App nationally to determine the reach, adoption, implementation and maintenance of App use among university/college students.

Conditions

• Intimate Partner Violence

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Usual Care Safety Planing App

The control group App will provide women and friends with basic safety planning information and a brief resource list of IPV resources. The resources will be targeted to college students age 18-24 years. The control group App safety plan is not personalized to woman/friend's safety priorities and danger in the relationship.

BEHAVIORAL

Personalized App-Based Safety Decision Aid

Setting of priorities for safety: participants will establish priorities by making pairwise comparisons of importance between 5 factors. Danger Assessment: asks participants to report on well-established risk factors for repeat violence and lethal IPV. A weighted scoring algorithm provides participants with their validated level of danger and safety planning information and resources based on their level of danger. Personalized action plan: Based on a participant's answers to the previous sections, a list of safety strategies with links to resources will be presented tailored to their level of danger and priority settings. The participant is given the option to print results and the personalized plan.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  collaborator NIH

• Arizona State University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Missouri-Columbia

  collaborator OTHER

• Kaiser Permanente

  collaborator OTHER

• Johns Hopkins University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Nancy Glass, PhD · Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

24 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-07-31

Primary Completion

2017-10-31

Completion

2020-02-07

Countries

• United States

Study Locations