Page 150 - GHES-2-4

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Dating violence, mental health symptoms, and

life satisfaction in same-sex and opposite-sex
relationships in Spain: A gender analysis

M. Pilar Matud * , María-José del Pino 2 , D. Estefanía Hernández-Lorenzo ,
1
1
1
Demelsa Fortes , and Ignacio Ibáñez 1
1 Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychobiology and Methodology, Universidad de La Laguna,
La Laguna, Spain
2 Department of Sociology, University Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain

Abstract

Intimate partner violence has become a major social and public health problem. Thus,
this study examines dating violence perpetration and victimization in opposite-sex
and same-sex couples in Spain. The sample was non-probabilistic and consisted of
240 men and 288 women, half of each gender group had a same-sex partner while
the other half had an opposite-sex partner. Participants were assessed using six
Academic editor:
Mihajlo Jakovljevic M.D. Ph.D. MAE scales and questionnaires. The results showed that 60.8% of men and 59% of women
in same-sex relationships and 67.5% of men and 48.6% of women in opposite-sex
*Corresponding author:
M. Pilar Matud relationships reported experiencing some – mostly psychological – violence from
(pmatud@ull.edu.es) their partner. 21.7% of men and 11.1% of women with a same-sex partner and 25.8%
of men and 9.7% of women with an opposite-sex partner reported experiencing
Citation: Matud, M.P.,
del Pino, M.J., physical violence, and 10% of men and 9% of women with a same-sex partner and
Hernández-Lorenzo, D.E., 7.5% men and 6.3% women with an opposite sex partner reported sexual violence.
Fortes, D., & Ibáñez, I. (2024). Perpetration and victimization were associated: 47.5% of men and 46.5% of women
Dating violence, mental health
symptoms, and life satisfaction with a same-sex partner and 53.3% of men and 38.9% of women with an opposite-
in same-sex and opposite-sex sex partner reported being both victims and perpetrators of dating violence. In all
relationships in Spain: A gender groups, being a victim of violence was linked to increased anxiety and insomnia
analysis. Global Health Econ
Sustain, 2(4):3300. symptoms, and in some groups, it was also linked to severe depressive symptoms
https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.3300 and low self-esteem. Despite differences depending on gender and whether the
Received: March 28, 2024 relationship is between same-sex or opposite-sex partners, dating violence is
common in all relationships and represents a serious threat to mental health and
Accepted: May 21, 2024
well-being.
Published Online: October 23, 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). Keywords: Dating violence; Same-sex partner; Opposite-sex partner; Gender; Mental
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the health; Life satisfaction
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited. 1. Introduction
Publisher’s Note: AccScience Dating violence refers to the threatened or actual use of physical, verbal, or sexual abuse
Publishing remains neutral with by one non-married partner against another in a dating relationship (Anderson & Danis,
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional 2007). Although this term is generally applied to adolescent or young adult relationships,
affiliations. it can refer to violence or abuse that occurs in dating relationships regardless of age

Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.3300