According to CDC (2012), dating violence poses potential destructive physical, sexual, or
psychological effects to victims within a relationship. As a victim, Christina is possibly facing
health risks in all the three scopes: physical, sexual, and psychological. Therefore, the school
nurse should question her based on these scopes during the assessment (Rippke, Briske, Keller,
& Strohschein, 2001). Examples of possible questions the nurse may ask include:
Does Jake subject you to any form of physical abuse such as pinching, shoving, hitting,
slapping, kicking, pulling hair, choking, and biting etc.?
Does Jake engage in unwanted kissing, touching, or sexual activities?
Does he interfere with your use of birth control?
Does he yell, shout, insult, threaten or use any sexually derogative names?
Does he post your private sexual photos online?
Does he intimidate, scare, threaten, or humiliate you in any way?
Does he destroy your personal property?
Based on the results of the assessment, the nurse may apply a number of interventions in
the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Primary interventions are generally aimed at avoiding
the incidence of physical sexual, and emotional health risks that have not yet occurred
(Iwh.on.ca., 2015). Examples of interventions would involve educating Christina about
prevention measures that she could use to evade further abuse. Secondary interventions represent
measures for slowing down the progression of the current abuse and may include providing
support and coaching the victim on critical skills that may enable her leave the abusive
relationship and create a healthy relationship (Iwh.on.ca., 2015). Finally, tertiary interventions
CASE STUDY, DATE VIOLENCE 3
seek to lower the residual effects of the abuse such as depression, poor performance in school,
and any other disorder that may have arisen in the course of the abusive relationship (Iwh.on.ca.,
2015). Examples of tertiary interventions include ongoing counselling, introduction of norms,
skills, and resources for safeguarding psychological health, apprehension of the offender, and
provision of treatment.
Relevant parties may also apply collaborative community-based initiatives such as
service integration initiatives, comprehensive services, and community-change interventions, to
address the problem in Christina’s community (McLeroy, Norton, Kegler, Burdine & Sumaya,
2003). Service integration initiatives entail collaboration between and within law enforcement,
social service agencies, and healthcare providers. Different service integration initiatives differ in
structure, style of operation, and settings but are similar in that they seek to enhance the design
and quality of services that are focused on specific problems like dating violence.
Comprehensive services for multiple problems are intended to improve the impact of service
delivery by responding to problems faced by multiple teens in dating relationships. These
problems may include substance abuse, violence, depression, and poor performance in school.
Lastly, community-change interventions shift the locus of authority and power from centralized
structures to community task forces in order to create social networks in the community that
allow members of the community to focus on services that address existing problems, which
would include dating abuse in this case.
CASE STUDY, DATE VIOLENCE 4
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2012). Understanding teen dating violence:
Fact sheet. Injury Center: Violence Prevention. Retrieved July, 2, 2012.
Iwh.on.ca. (2015). Primary, secondary and tertiary prevention | Institute for Work & Health.
[online] Available at: https://www.iwh.on.ca/what-researchers-mean-by/primary-
secondary-and-tertiary-prevention [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
McLeroy, K. R., Norton, B. L., Kegler, M. C., Burdine, J. N., & Sumaya, C. V. (2003).
Community-based interventions.
Rippke, M., Briske, L., Keller, L., & Strohschein, S. (2001). Public health interventions:
Applications for public health nursing practice. Retrieved November, 7, 2009.
