Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) during dating relationships in young people, including adolescents (age range 10–19 years) and youth (15–24 years), is a relevant public health problem that must be specifically addressed, because of its high prevalence and its worrying consequences for health and for the construction of adult relationship models. This phenomenon is already present at early adolescence (10–14 years) and affects both men and women worldwide; thus, both can be victims or perpetrators of different types of abuses, although it was more frequent to be victimized and suffer emotional violence (Joppa, 2020).

Breiding et al. (2014), using data from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) on a representative sample of the United States of America (USA), found that 23.2% of female and 14.1% of male victims of sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner were victims before the age of 18 years. In Europe, in a six-country study of 1555 high school students between 13 and 16 years old, 34.1% of girls and 26.7% of boys who had been involved in a romantic or dating relationship experienced dating violence (Vives-Cases et al., 2021). In Spain, according to data from the 2019 Spanish Macrosurvey on Gender Violence, 19.3% of young women (16 to 24 years) have suffered physical and/or sexual violence victimization and 46.1% have suffered some type of psychological violence victimization by any partner in their lifetime.

Experiencing a violent dating relationship at a young age can have important consequences not only because of the direct damage caused by IPV victimization (i.e., hematomas, injuries, vaginal tearing, crying, or isolation), but also because of its indirect impact on other social and health outcomes. For example, young women who have experienced physical/sexual IPV victimization are known to have worse perceived physical and mental health, more limitations in their activities (Sanz-Barbero et al., 2019), and more health-related risk behaviors (Vagi et al., 2015). In addition, IPV victimization has been associated with lower academic efficiency and greater stress levels among college students (Banyard et al., 2020).

Background

Sexual violence victimization is one of the types of violence present in dating relationships among young people. Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is often considered to be an umbrella term for all forms of sexual violence in the context of an intimate relationship, including a wide range of forms, like rape, sexual aggression, unwanted sexual contact, or sexual coercion (Bagwell-Gray et al., 2015). Sexual coercion is considered the most frequent IPSV in young women (Breiding et al., 2014; Santos-Iglesias & Sierra, 2012; Wong et al., 2021).

Although it is difficult to compare figures from different studies, as they are highly dependent on the definition and measurement of IPSV, in the USA, according to the results from the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence, 17.8% of girls between the ages of 12 and 18 were victims of any sexual adolescent relationship abuse in dating relationships in the current or past year (Taylor & Mumford, 2016). In Europe, sexual teen dating violence victimization among girls ranged from 7.8% in Portugal to 41.0% in the UK (Tomaszewska & Schuster, 2021).

Although IPSV in young people may be bidirectional, the scientific literature agrees on the existence of higher rates of sexual victimization in girls (Vagi et al., 2015; Vives-Cases et al., 2021) already from very early ages (from 12 to 13 years old) (Joppa, 2020).

Considering the age group of university students (approximately between 18 and 25 years of age), which coincides with the onset of adulthood, IPSV victimization is a common reality. In a study conducted at two universities in the northeastern of the USA (Sutherland et al., 2016), it is reported that 13.2% of the college women had experienced forced sexual unwanted activities by their partner or ex-partner in the last 6 months (the beginning of the school year). Also in the USA, a study conducted in nine institutions of higher education reported that 20% of the victims of physical abuse and/or sexual assault by an intimate partner suffered both types of violence and 11% were victims of sexual assault but not nonsexual physical abuse during the academic year (Krebs et al., 2016). Similarly, a study conducted in Canada on university students found that 33% of female university students between 18 and 24 years old had experienced at least some type of IPSV victimization in their most recent heterosexual intimate relationship in the past year (Jeffrey & Barata, 2021). In China, in a sample of 1015 female university students between 18 and 29 years of age, 12% experienced some form of IPV victimization in their current or past relationships in the past year (Wong et al., 2021). In Spain, 11.8 of women between 16 and 24 years of age have experienced IPSV victimization from a current or past partner in their lifetime (Ministry of Equality, 2019).

It is important to continue this line of research due to the high prevalence of IPSV victimization detected and by conducting further studies in other countries, considering the different cultural characteristics, not only in the society at large but also specifically in the university campuses. To date, the vast majority of evidence regarding dating violence comes predominantly from North America (Meiksin et al., 2023; Tomaszewska & Schuster, 2021); thus, several authors have called for more research in the European context (Tomaszewska & Schuster, 2021). In this regard, there are huge differences in terms of the residential environment of university students in Europe, including Spain, and countries from North America, especially the USA. In European countries, the majority of university students live with their parents or in rented apartments. In contrast, in the USA, university culture is created around campus life, which gives a great value to sports, clubs, teams, extracurricular activities, and fraternities and sororities. Moreover, given that most students in the USA live in university dorms (Campbell et al., 2021), student life is inextricably intertwined with life on campus. In the USA, male peer affiliation (i.e., athletics, fraternity involvement) has been identified as a risk factor for the perpetration of sexual violence (Bonar et al., 2022). In Europe, the concepts of dorm and fraternity are largely non-existent.

Polyvictimization, which refers to the simultaneous experience of multiple victimizations, such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, bullying, or family abuse (Finkelhor et al., 2011), has also been addressed in the context of IPV. Thus, in a study of 2629 women over 18 years of age participating in the NISVS Pilot Study survey in the USA, it was observed that women who were victims of IPV frequently suffered polyvictimization, and this was even more likely in women who had experienced stalking where they suffered on average 3.4 experiences of victimization by their intimate partner; however, this evidence was limited to adult women (mean age 47 years) (Krebs et al., 2011). In a study of 4533 college males and females in the USA, the most frequent combination of victimization in the intimate partner relationship during the previous year was psychological, physical, and sexual victimization (21.3% of females) (Sabina & Strauss, 2008). It is common to address sexual violence victimization in relation to physical violence in the context of teen dating violence, as illustrated by Vagi et al. (2015) in a study of 9900 US high school students and by Krebs et al. (2016), in over 23,000 undergraduate American students, where 20% of the victims of physical violence and/or sexual assault by an intimate partner were victims of both types of violence. However, the literature has not yet reported the relationship between IPSV victimization and certain types of emotional IPV such as detachment (indifference towards the partner) or humiliation (offense or criticism of the partner) among young women. In summary, most studies on IPSV victimization and polyvictimization in young people have been conducted in the USA (Ross et al., 2016; Snyder et al., 2021), and therefore, it is relevant to improve knowledge on this topic in other European countries given that the socio-cultural and university context is different.

Methods

Aim

The aim of the study was to describe the prevalence of IPSV among heterosexual female university students in Spain and to explore the presence of polyvictimization.

Study Design and Participants

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a sample of 1218 heterosexual female university students from the University of Oviedo (northern Spain). This study is part of a larger investigation on gender roles and reproductive health, which included questions that could only be answered by females in a heterosexual relationship and those who had ever had heterosexual intercourse (Llano-Suárez et al., 2021). Participants were selected by means of two-stage sampling. First, researchers contacted the deans of all the degrees taught at this University (n = 57) by email, seeking their collaboration with student recruitment. Of the 31 degrees willing to participate, the following degrees were randomly selected for participation (n = 10): Nursing, Physiotherapy, Medicine, Psychology, Law, Labor Relations and Human Resources, English Studies, Spanish Language and Literature, Early Childhood Education Teacher, and Primary Education Teacher. Second, a convenience recruitment of participants was carried out face-to-face among all female students attending class the day scheduled for the survey. The University of Oviedo is supported by public funding. It is worth noting that it is the only university in the province; therefore, the students are a reflection of the social and cultural context. In addition, the student body is largely homogeneous; therefore, the presence of cultural and/or religious identities different to Spanish is a minority at this university.

Previously, the sample size was calculated considering a confidence level of 95%, an estimated error of 3%, and the prevalence of female university students who had suffered IPSV victimization according to a pilot study conducted in the Nursing and Physiotherapy degrees at the University of Oviedo (37.3%) (García Díaz et al., 2013), estimating a necessary sample of at least 1039 students (including an expected 25% rate of exclusions for missing data).

The inclusion criteria were as follows: being over 18 years of age, having had a heterosexual relationship of at least 1-month duration, and having had sexual intercourse at some time during their lifetime. Female university students over 30 years of age were excluded from the study.

Instruments

In this study, two types of IPSV victimization were measured: sexual coercion, defined as an unwanted sexual penetration that occurs after a person is pressured, tricked, or threatened in a nonphysical way, and unwanted sexual contact, which refers to unwanted sexual experiences involving touch but not sexual penetration, such as being kissed in a sexual way, or having sexual body parts fondled, groped, or grabbed (Smith et al., 2018). Four items were used to measure more sensitive types of IPSV victimization, two of which were categorized as sexual coercion: “You feel compelled to have sex as long as you don’t have to explain why” and “You feel forced to perform certain sexual acts,” and the other two items were considered unwanted sexual contact: “Insists on touching you in ways and places which you don’t like and don’t want” and “Forces you to undress even if you don’t want to.” Feeling forced to perform certain sexual acts or to undress against the woman’s will were considered the most invasive behaviors towards women.

These four items are one of the domains of the Dating Violence Questionnaire-R (DVQ-R) scale (Rodríguez-Díaz et al., 2017), which assesses IPV through 20 behaviors grouped into five domains of IPV: coercion (pressure exerted on someone to force their will or behavior through threats or manipulation), detachment (attitude of indifference towards the partner and their feelings), humiliation (personal criticism against self-esteem and personal pride), sexual violence (sexual behaviors not desired by the partner), and physical violence (personalized with blows, damage to objects with emotional significance for the victim). Each domain includes four items. Each item assesses the frequency of certain IPV behaviors (e.g., “Has physically kept you from leaving”) according to a Likert scale (1: “never” to 5: “almost always”). Following the “zero tolerance” criterion, a woman was considered to have suffered from IPSV victimization and/or any form of IPV victimization included in the questionnaire when she responded to any item with a frequency of “sometimes” or higher.

Finally, the following variables were included: age, university degree, age at first sexual intercourse (years), total number of dating relationships (partners), continuity of the relationship with the selected heterosexual partner (yes/no), and history of IPV in the family context (yes/no).

Procedure

Students were recruited in the classroom between January and March 2018. Trained staff explained the objectives, inclusion criteria, and procedure to all female students attending class, inviting them to participate by sincerely completing a self-administered and anonymous survey in pencil-and-paper format. Completion of the questionnaire took place in the first or last minutes of a theoretical class whose subject matter was not related to this research. Participation was voluntary and confidential, without any economic or other benefit and without any impact on their academic grade.

In general, the students were asked to base their answers on the most conflictive heterosexual relationship or the relationship that had had the greatest impact on them in their lifetime, if they had been involved in several relationships.

Ethical Considerations

All participants provided informed consent to participate in the study. The questionnaires did not include any personally identifiable data of the students. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Principality of Asturias (Spain) and the rectorate of the University of Oviedo.

Data Analysis

An anonymized database was created. All analyses were performed with the statistical program SPSS v. 22.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

Absolute and relative frequencies (%) were used to describe qualitative variables and the means and standard deviation for quantitative variables. The comparison between IPSV victimization and other types of IPV victimization was performed with the chi-square test.

In addition, exploratory multivariate analyses were performed using binary logistic regressions. Odds ratios (ORs) and their confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated to estimate the association between IPSV victimization and age of first sexual intercourse, number of partners, family history of IPV, and other types of IPV. These regressions were adjusted according to two models: model 1 included age at first sexual intercourse (< 16 years, 16 years, 17 years, and ≥ 18 years), number of partners (1, 2, ≥ 3), and family history of IPV victimization (yes/no), calculating the OR of each variable adjusted for the rest of the variables within the model, and model 2 additionally included the other types of IPV victimization, i.e., coercion, detachment, humiliation, and physical as dichotomous variables. Statistical significance was considered with p < 0.05.

Validity and Reliability/Rigor

The DVQ-R scale is a shortened version of the Dating Violence Questionnaire (DVQ) that includes eight types of abuse (detachment, humiliation, sexual, coercion, physical, gender-based, emotional punishment, and instrumental). The DVQ was designed and validated to assess intimate partner victimization among adolescents and youths in different countries (López-Cepero et al., 2016; Rodríguez Franco et al., 2010). The DVQ-R has been validated in Spain by Rodríguez-Díaz et al. (2017) in 6138 adolescents and young adults between 15 and 26 years of age (including 24.2% of university students and 60.4% of female students). Concretely, it has been used to measure IPSV and IPV victimization in males and females of any sexual orientation. According to a systematic review of measures used in dating violence research, most instruments were neutral in terms of gender and sexual orientation (Meiksin et al., 2023). Cronbach’s alpha obtained in our sample was 0.97.

Results

Of the 1218 female university students recruited for the study, 154 were excluded. Reasons for exclusion were as follows: students who did not meet the selection criteria (n = 4), students whose questionnaires were incomplete (i.e., those with a missing value in any of the main variables used in this study) (n = 116), or participants who were older than 30 years (n = 34). Therefore, the final sample was 1064 participants (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Flowchart of the study selection process

Full size image

Sample Characteristics and IPSV Victimization

The mean age of participants was 20.5 years (SD = 2.3), with a range between 17 and 30 years. The distribution of the students according to the degree was as follows: Nursing (14.3%), Physiotherapy (4.8%), Medicine (15.9%), Psychology (15.5%), Law (11.8%), Labor Relations and Human Resources (4.6%), English Studies (1.9%), Spanish Language and its Literatures (1.5%), Early Childhood Education Teacher (13.3%), and Primary Education Teacher (16.4%).

In our sample, 221 female students (20.8%) suffered some IPSV behavior in their lifetime: 15.0% felt forced to have sex “just to avoid having to give explanations,” 11.6% suffered insistence on unwanted and unpleasant touching, 9.9% felt forced to perform certain sexual acts, and 4.6% were forced to undress when they did not want to.

Among students who experienced IPSV victimization (Table 1), compared to those who did not, it was more frequent to have had their first sexual intercourse before the age of 16 years (p = 0.005) and to have had three or more partners (p = 0005). One in three female victims of IPSV (30.3%) continued with the violent relationship (p < 0.001), and 17.6% had a history of IPV in the family (p = 0.001).

Table 1 Characteristics of the sample and sexual victimization
Full size table

Polyvictimization (Psychological and Physical Violence) in Female Students Who Are Victims of IPSV

Regarding the frequency of other forms of lifetime IPV victimization among the total number of participants (Table 2), detachment (54.4%) and coercion (38.3%) were the most frequent violent behaviors, followed by humiliation and physical violence. The frequencies of the types of victimization analyzed were higher in IPSV victims (p < 0.001). Most female students reporting IPSV victimization suffered detachment (86.0%) or coercion (74.2%). In addition, 23.1% also experienced physical violence. For the four IPSV behaviors considered in this study, the same pattern was maintained in terms of polyvictimization, with a predominance of psychological violence, especially detachment, which affected more than 90% of the women who endured forced sexual acts. Feeling forced to perform certain sexual acts or to undress was accompanied by physical violence in about 40% of the cases.

Table 2 Coexistence of the other types of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in female students who are victims of IPSV
Full size table

As the IPSV became more severe, feeling that they were forced to perform certain sexual acts or to undress as the most invasiveness behaviors, the percentage of women who suffered polyvictimization increased (p < 0.001).

Association Between IPSV and Polyvictimization

Table 3 shows a significant association between lifetime IPSV victimization and having had the first sexual intercourse before the age of 16 (OR: 1.65; 95% CI: 1.06–2.56), having had three or more partners (OR: 1.66; 95% CI: 1.12–2.46), and having a history of IPV in the family (OR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.25–2.90). However, when adjusting these associations for the other types of IPV victimization studied, the effect is attenuated, and these associations are no longer significant. Thus, the increased risk of suffering IPSV victimization was associated with any other form of IPV victimization within the intimate partner relationship, whereas coercion and detachment were the behaviors that most increased the probability of suffering IPSV victimization (OR: 3.17 [95% CI: 2.16–4.65] and OR: 3.15 [95% CI: 2.01–4.94], respectively). Similarly, suffering physical violence was associated with IPSV victimization (OR: 2.33; 95% CI: 1.34–4.08).

Table 3 Adjusted odds ratios (OR) for the association between IPSV victimization, characteristics of previous relationships (refers to the age of first sexual intercourse and total number of partners), family history of IPV, and other types of intimate partner violence
Full size table

Discussion

According to our results, IPSV victimization is present in many relationships held by female university students, where polyvictimization is also common, especially when IPSV coexists with psychological violence.

In our study, one in five female university students suffered lifetime IPSV victimization, measured as sexual coercion and unwanted sexual contact. This prevalence of IPSV victimization is lower than that recorded in nursing students (mean age 22.6 years) at our center in 2012 (37.3%) (García Díaz et al., 2013); however, it has been 10 years since that measurement. Nevertheless, it is also lower than that of another recent study conducted in Canada (Jeffrey & Barata, 2021), where 33.1% of young female university students between 18 and 24 years old suffered IPSV victimization in their most recent heterosexual intimate relationship in the past year, or in the USA, where 25.3% of college women between 20 and 26 years old had suffered a forced unwanted sexual experience by their partner or ex-partner lifetime (Sutherland et al., 2016). It is possible that the frequency of IPV in our study is lower because of the method of data collection (self-administered in-person survey), since the rates of IPV detected by face-to-face and self-administered written screening tools are usually lower than those when using computer-assisted self-administered surveys (Hussain et al., 2015). In any case, it was not entirely surprising to find lower figures in Spain than in North America, given the important differences in the characteristics of the university environment.

Our findings justify expanding the knowledge on IPSV victimization in young people in Spain and also in other countries, given that these findings are alarming, demonstrating that this is a major problem in relationships among young people worldwide. Furthermore, this study also provides evidence that IPSV victimization is not the only violence suffered by these young women within the couple; rather, polyvictimization is also very common within the same relationship. Thus, almost one in four female students who suffered IPSV also suffered physical violence, more than half were humiliated, and three out of four also suffered psychological violence. In addition, polyvictimization increased as the sexual abuse became more severe, being present in a highly relevant manner when the women felt forced to perform certain sexual acts or to undress against their will.

These findings are important because most of the female students who suffer from the less severe forms of sexual coercion victimization, i.e., “You feel compelled to have sex as long as you don’t have to explain why,” are also immersed in a relationship where emotional polyvictimization is very common and this polyvictimization increases as IPSV behaviors become more invasive. The information that young women receive on the different forms of violence included in the IPV and IPSV should be reinforced in order to better identify any violent behavior in the couple that could be a warning sign or “red flag” and to be able to leave a violent relationship before behaviors with a higher level of sexual aggressiveness occur, which, as we have seen, are more frequently accompanied by emotional and physical violence victimization. These results cannot be overlooked, because although sexual coercion may be thought of as the most subtle form of male sexual violence against women, some authors have suggested that prior sexual coercion by an intimate partner and feeling committed to the relationship may be risk factors for increasing women’s tolerance of certain circumstances where sexual victimization occurs (Garrido-Macías et al., 2020).

We should also consider that even though most of the female university students in our study ended the heterosexual relationship with their partner, one in three continued to be in the relationship. The difficulty women have in detecting sexually violent behaviors, more so when they occur in the context of a couple relationship (Jeffrey & Barata, 2021; Logan et al., 2015), is likely the root of this results. Many women consider it normal for their partner to force them into certain sexual acts or pressure them when they do not feel like engaging in sexual activity, whereas some feel like “bad girlfriends” for rejecting their partners (Jeffrey & Barata, 2017, 2021). This sexual coercion is especially common in intimate and long-term relationships and often coexists with other forms of violence (Jeffrey & Barata, 2017). This may be the result of differential gender socialization, due to women being passed on the idea that they must please men sexually (Jeffrey & Barata, 2021). Other authors have documented that there are multiple and complex ways in which gender conditions young people’s understanding and perception of violence against women. Thus, social norms and gender roles persist, in which men are presented as dominant, sexually aggressive, and physically strong, whereas women are identified as vulnerable and overemotional, positioning them as subordinate in heterosexual relationships. Bio-determinist discourses may justify violence if gender roles attributed to women are breached (e.g., acceptance versus criminalization of partner infidelity) and because of the “normality” of violence attributed to men (Edwards et al., 2022). In addition, endorsement of heteronormative beliefs about men and women (i.e., “men should dominate women sexually,” “men are always ready for sex”) that are also present in cultural elements (e.g., pornography, movies, videos, or music) may enhance the use of coercive practices during dating relationships and/or the fact that some women maintain a passive behavior oriented at the sexual satisfaction of men (Bonomi et al., 2016; Tarzia & Tyler, 2021; Women’s Institute, 2022). Holding such beliefs may increase the acceptance of verbal sexual coercion in both men and women, with men reporting perpetrating such sexual coercion and women being victims of it (Eaton & Matamala, 2014). In this sense, it has been documented that female students who suffered greater IPSV victimization assumed a more traditional gender role, characterized by passivity and submission (Llano-Suárez et al., 2021). This may cause women with sexist beliefs or more traditional gender roles to normalize violent sexual behaviors to a greater extent or even justify them, remaining in the relationship (García-Díaz et al., 2018; Jeffrey & Barata, 2017). Some women only identify violent acts as those in which there is a high level of violence during the aggression (Donde et al., 2018), implying that subtle acts could go unnoticed and be normalized when they occur within a dating relationship (Maquibar et al., 2017).

This spiral of polyvictimization in intimate partner relationships, which has already been documented as prevalent in US college students and was a significant predictor of depressive symptoms in women (Sabina & Strauss, 2008), probably affects the course of their future relationships, as has been revealed in adult women victims of IPSV (Tarzia, 2021). To know the personal experience of young women who have suffered IPSV victimization in greater detail, it would be very useful to develop research with qualitative methodology to explore their experience in depth, as other authors have developed in women, especially adult women (Tarzia, 2021), showing the great impact of IPSV victimization on the women who suffer it. According to this previous study, suffering IPSV victimization caused profound damage to their lives, saying that this violence at the hands of their partners was probably even worse than if it came from a stranger because it came from someone who was supposed to love them and to whom they were committed. Many rated the impact of IPSV victimization as even worse than physical or psychological violence and felt helpless in the face of this type of violence, which had a great impact on their lives, both as women and as individuals. In addition, this terrible experience had long-term negative effects on their future relationships. Faced with this reality, it is a priority to act as soon as possible, addressing this problem in young women before the damage of IPSV can mark their lives.

Moreover, we have observed that among female students who suffered IPSV, early sexual debut before the age of 16 years (legal age for consensual sex in Spain) was more frequent, as well as having had more partners. The association between early sexual intercourse and the high number of partners with sexual violence has been suggested previously (Yarkovsky & Timmons Fritz, 2014), but the link has not been adequately theorized. Several theories could support this association (Heywood et al., 2015). According to life course theory, the timing of a major life event, such as sexual debut, is highly relevant for transition to adult life and for long-term health outcomes. The script theory proposes that sexual schemas develop before first sexual experience; thereby, if sexual debut occurs very early, dysfunctional scripts may be formed. Thus, initiating sexual relations when the personality is still developing can contribute to normalizing violent experiences within a couple’s relationship. The target congruency theory also helps to understand greater victimization among individuals who have sex when they are still children. According to this theory, people who appear vulnerable, such as young girls, constitute a provocation for a perpetrator. Additionally, there are a large number of theories that support that socially defined problems tend to coexist in adolescents or in socially defined groups, such as lifestyle theory, routine activities theory, or even the ecological theory. Finally, in addition to the previous theories, obviously with a greater number of partners, there was a probability increase of meeting a potential abuse perpetrator and being entangled in dating violence (Khanhkham et al., 2020). To address this reality, it is important to develop a comprehensive sexuality education from an early age, in middle school and high school, which has proven useful in preventing IPV by addressing the gender norms that underlie unequal relationships and how to be prepared if IPV occurs (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2021; Makleff et al., 2020).

The scientific literature is relatively rich in successful strategies and programs for dealing with dating violence, including IPSV. Lundgren and Amin (2015) conducted a review to identify effective approaches to prevent adolescent IPV and IPSV. According to their findings, dating violence prevention programs for heterosexual students aimed at developing communication and negotiation skills among early adolescents were effective in preventing physical, sexual, and emotional violence. Likewise, other school-based interventions improved gender-equitable attitudes and increased self-reported likelihood to intervene in situations of IPV. In addition, creating enabling environments to make violence unacceptable seemed to be more effective than placing the burden of self-protection on girls by teaching them self-protection skills. More recently, another systematic review in heterosexual youths between 12 and 24 years of age found evidence that primary prevention interventions were effective in reducing the perpetration of IPV and IPSV (Finnie et al., 2022). In particular, interventions that included teaching healthy relationship skills, promoting social norms that protect against violence, and creating protective environments were consistent and favorable. Focusing on the university environment, Wong et al. (2023) conducted a meta-analysis of studies evaluating the effectiveness of college dating violence prevention programs (94% in the USA). Their results suggested that programs were useful to increase knowledge and attitudes towards IPV. Most programs were focused on skill-building/development and bystander training; however, interventions including definitions of consent and violence produced larger treatment effect, especially if the approach incorporated a video component (Wong et al., 2023). Although university idiosyncrasy differs in North America and Europe and our study refers only to IPSV and not to violence perpetrated by strangers or campus peers, these programs can be a source of inspiration for the design of prevention strategies adapted to the Spanish university community. It is interesting to note that almost all these programs emerged after the enactment of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (Campus SaVE) Act in 2013, indicating that legal norms are powerful triggers for individual changes bringing a society with less sexual violence.

Despite these findings, the factors that most increased the risk of IPSV victimization in young women were psychological violence (coercion and detachment) and physical violence victimization within the violent relationship, meaning that polyvictimization in the same relationship was more important than other variables such as age at sexual debut, number of partners, or family history of IPV. This reaffirms the importance, once again, of implementing strategies to build healthy relationships away from gender inequality in young people by paying attention to behaviors that may not be recognized as IPV because they are more subtle. Thus, it may be useful to integrate content on this issue in university teaching programs in a cross-cutting manner, such as indicators of abuse, protocols for action, and social and legal approaches to IPSV, where universities take a proactive role in addressing this problem. In addition, it is important to disseminate how this polyvictimization suffered by young women is a pattern that is frequently maintained in battered women in adult life, making it a priority to address this situation already during juvenile courtship.

This research deepens the understanding of IPV victimization in young women, together with its associated factors and polyvictimization, representing a much-needed starting point for designing interventions aimed at reducing its frequency. These initiatives could begin in the educational environment, where small-scale programs already exist (Vives-Cases et al., 2019); however, they should be implemented in a protocolized manner at the national level and should commence as early as primary education (Vives-Cases et al., 2021) and continue throughout university years.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. First, the cross-sectional nature of the data collection does not allow us to establish causal relationships between the variables under study. This research was focused on female students in heterosexual relationships; therefore, it would be important to promote similar studies aimed at women with different sexual orientations as the assumption that sexual minorities experience IPV in the same way as heterosexual women is incorrect.

In addition, the fact that the study was carried out on university students means that the results cannot be generalized to other groups. Nevertheless, we believe that these results can help to estimate what happens in similar samples of young people in other Spanish universities. Moreover, the fact that the female students were asked to base their responses on the most conflictive heterosexual partner or the one that had marked them the most is a limitation, since in the case of having had several partners, the choice is subjective. Moreover, if the violence took place in the past, the responses may be influenced by a memory bias. This research is based on the voluntary participation of the students; therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility that those female students who did not complete the questionnaires were different. However, we believe that volunteerism is more likely to derive in an underestimation of the prevalence of IPSV victimization rather than an overestimation. Regarding the questionnaire used, it did not allow us to know if the students had suffered other more severe types of IPSV victimization, such as rape or sexual aggression. In addition, the DVQ-R scale includes detachment as a type of IPV, which may be controversial. Although other IPV scales also include some items measuring detachment (e.g., “My partner withheld affection from me” or “My partner has no respect for my feelings”) (Hudson & McIntosh, 1981; Tolman, 1999), detachment in dating relationships is not a clear indicator of even mild violence and is rather considered a dysfunctional way of handling emotions or even a consequence of a previous abuse. Finally, participation in our study was low, as only approximately 30% of the female students enrolled in the grades under study participated, which may be due to low student attendance in some grades. In addition, we cannot rule out a selection bias since only faculties where the deans showed interest were included. However, we believe that our large sample and the inclusion of students from ten different degrees enable us to establish reliable associations.

Conclusions

Intimate partner sexual violence victimization is present in many relationships among young college women, and most often, it does not occur in isolation; thus, polyvictimization is also common, usually coexisting with both psychological and physical abuse. It is important to pay attention to the presence of certain behaviors, such as coercion and detachment, in dating relationships between young female students as these are related to IPSV victimization.