Partner of Victim of Physical Abuse
Conditions
Keywords
physical or sexual intimate partner violence, adolescents, primary prevention, randomised controlled trial, school, South Africa, parenting
Brief summary
Development and evaluation of a multi-faceted school-based intervention to prevent intimate partner violence among Grade 8 high school students in South Africa
Detailed description
Primary prevention of intimate partner violence among young men and women requires an intervention which addresses the underlying driving factors of such violence operating at different ecological levels.That is, interventions need to address factors impacting directly on youth and their family relationships, school as an institutional setting. In the school, holistic interventions strengthen the curriculum and teaching, but also the broader environment of learning, including addressing positive discipline and the culture of the school. In order to prevent violence, interventions need to build gender equality, challenge the normative use of violence in schools and homes (e.g., corporal punishment), strengthen teen-adult relationships and communication, and build negotiation and conflict resolution skills, as well as addressing stress and coping. A three-arm, cluster randomised controlled trial based in high schools in Gauteng, South Africa is evaluating such a multi-faceted primary prevention intervention. This intervention includes school strengthening components for learners and educators, which includes providing a teaching materials for the grade 8 life orientation (LO) curriculum (which covers gender and violence), training teachers in LO teaching, training staff on positive discipline and establishing learner clubs. A second intervention seeks to strengthen families and is a workshop based intervention delivered over 4 day long sessions for a parent or caregiver and their grade 8 adolescent. The intervention is being evaluated in a three arm randomised controlled trial, with school-level randomisation involving 24 schools. One is a delayed intervention control arm, two arms have the school strengthening intervention and one arm additionally have the family strengthening intervention. The outcomes will be addressed using qualitative and quantitative methods with data collected from Grade 8 learners (the primary outcome group), school educators and administrators, and parents/caregivers of Grade 8s. These measures will be conducted pre-intervention and at 6, 12, and 18 month follow up periods. In addition, an economic costing evaluation will be conducted.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALSkhokho Supporting Success for Schools
All information describing each facet of the intervention are included in the arm/group descriptions.
BEHAVIORALSkhokho Supporting Success for Families
All information describing each facet of the intervention are included in the arm/group descriptions.
Sponsors
Medical Research Council, South Africa
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* LEARNER/TEEN PARTICIPANTS: enrolled in Grade 8 in one of the study schools; informed consent from parent/guardian to participate in study * EDUCATOR PARTICIPANTS: currently employed/working as an educator (of any group of learners) at one of the study schools * PARENT/CAREGIVER PARTICIPANTS: the male or female parent/caregiver/guardian of a Grade 8 learner in Arm 2 schools
Exclusion criteria
NONE
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The incidence of IPV (perpetration of physical or sexual IPV for boys and victimisation for girls) | Over 18 months of the study | Any participant who responds affirmatively to any one of the five questions on physical intimate partner violence or one question on sexual intimate partner violence at the 6, 12 or 18 month data collection points will be deemed to be an incident case of IPV victimisation (if female) or perpetration (if male). |
| The incidence of severe physical and sexual IPV | Over the last 12 months of the study | Any participant who responds affirmatively to more than one of the five questions on physical intimate partner violence and/or one question on sexual intimate partner violence at the 12 or 18 month data collection points will be deemed to be an incident case of severe IPV victimisation (if female) or perpetration (if male). |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The incidence of non-partner rape victimisation and perpetration | Over 18 months of the study | Any participant who responds affirmatively to any of the non-partner rape questions (2 for girls and 4 for boys) will be deemed to be an incident case of non-partner rape victimisation (if female) and perpetration (if male) |
| Childhood trauma exposure incidence | 18 month follow up | Positive affirmation of teens and environment at home Emotional neglect Physical abuse Sexual abuse |
| Bullying at school score | 18 month follow up | Comparison of scores across 3 items |
| Score for communication with girlfriend/boyfriend | 18 month follow up | Difference in scores measured through summing responses to 5 items |
| Child-caregiver communication scores | 18 month follow up | difference in scores derived through summing 5 questions |
| the incidence of delinquency | 18-month follow up | Any participant who responds affirmatively to any one of five questions on delinquency at the 6, 12 or 18 months data collection points will be deemed to be an incident case of delinquency |
| Depression and anxiety score measured on the Child Depression Inventory | 18-month follow up | The difference in scores |
| Gender attitudes score measured across 5 items | 18-month follow up | the difference in scores |
| The incidence of emotional Intimate Partner Violence perpetration (for boys) and victimisation (for girls) | 18 months follow up | Any participant who responds affirmatively to any one of the three questions on emotional intimate partner violence at the 6, 12 or 18 month data collection points will be deemed to be an incident case of emotional IPV victimisation (if female) or perpetration (if male). |
| Childhood trauma scale scores | 18 month follow up | Difference in scores derived through summing 15 items |
Outcome results
None listed