Patterns of Childhood Abuse and Dating Violence Victimization Among Early Adolescents From Denmark: A Latent Class Approach

Objective: An emerging body of research has examined patterns of adolescent dating violence (ADV) via person-centered approaches. However, these studies seem limited, as they do not integrate previous victimization as part of the violence typology. The present study explored discrete patterns based on different types of childhood abuse and ADV and the role of differential negative outcomes across these patterns. Method: Data from a large Danish survey on dating violence in early adolescence were used. In total, 1,799 Grade 7 students aged 12-15 years (M = 13.5, SD = .5) were included in the study. Latent class analysis was used to identify typologies of childhood abuse and ADV victimization. Results: Four distinct typologies of victimization emerged: a revictimization class (5.3%), a childhood maltreatment class (13.2%), an adolescent dating victimization class (19.4%), and a low victimization class (62.2%). Associations between gender, low socioeconomic status, and ethnic minority status varied across classes. The probability of adolescents who reported that they were female, had low socioeconomic status, and had parents who were immigrants was significantly higher in the revictimization class than the remaining classes. Moreover, probabilities of smoking and excessive alcohol intake were much higher in the revictimization class than the remaining classes. Conclusions: The latent class analytic approach allowed us to identify meaningful subgroups of victims. Owing to the variance in the prevalence of negative health behavioral factors across the victimization subgroups, results point to the potential benefit of targeting subgroups of adolescents as opposed to applying universal prevention strategies for ADV.