Help-Seeking Behaviors for Intimate Partner Violence Among College Students: Implications for Intimate Partner Violence Prevention and Intervention

Abstract

This study applied Andersen's Model of Health Service Use to examine help-seeking behaviors for intimate partner violence (IPV) and predisposing, enabling, and need factors for help-seeking among college students. The sample (N = 2,719) consisted of those who experienced IPV and was recruited from six universities in the United States and one university in Canada through an online survey. Results showed that 45.4% of the sample had sought some form of help for IPV. The most utilized source of formal help was from medical services, and friends were the number one source of informal help. Gender, age, sexual orientation (predisposing factors), IPV training (enabling factor), experiencing psychological and technological violence, and IPV consequences (need factors) were associated with seeking help. Implications for research and practice are discussed.