(PS8-88) The Association Between Digital Dating Abuse Victimization and Mental Health Outcomes in Sexual Minority Young Adults

Digital dating abuse (DDA) has become an increasingly alarming form of intimate partner violence (IPV) as use of technologies and social media proliferated, especially amongst young adults (Hinduja & Patchin, 2020). DDA involves digitally facilitated monitoring, threatening, and coercion of an intimate partner via texting, social media, and other online mediums, and is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes including substance use, depression, and anxiety (Lu et al., 2018; Spencer at al., 2019). Existing research showed borderline personality symptoms to be associated with other forms of IPV victimization (e.g., physical IPV; Spencer at al., 2019); however, this has received limited attention in the context of DDA. Further, despite consistent research illustrating that sexual minority individuals are at an elevated risk for IPV, DDA is relatively unexplored amongst this population. Thus, the proposed study aimed to examine the relationship between DDA victimization and mental health outcomes (i.e., depression, PTSD, borderline personality symptoms) among sexual minority young adults. We hypothesized that increased frequency of DDA victimization would be associated with higher levels of all three mental health variables.

Participants (N = 344) were between the ages of 18 and 25 (M = 21.43, SD = 2.02) and self-identified as a LGBTQ+ (13.9% gay, 19.1% lesbian, 39.7% bisexual, 11.9% queer, 11.6% pansexual, 0.9% asexual, 0.3% same-gender loving). Fourteen cases were excluded from analyses due to missing data. Self-report measures were completed in-person or virtually and assessed symptoms of depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies on Depression Scale Revised– 10; Björgvinsson et al., 2013), PTSD (PTSD Checklist for DSM-5; Weathers et al., 2013), and borderline personality from the PDQ-4 (Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire; Zimmerman & Mattia, 2001). DDA was measured using the Digital Dating Abuse Scale (DDAS; Reed et al., 2016). Separate regression analyses for each mental health outcome were conducted using SPSS.

Results indicated that 58.5% of participants reported experiencing DDA victimization in the past year. Analyses demonstrated that DDA victimization was significantly associated with symptoms of depression (B = .043, p = .028), PTSD (B = .192, p < .001), and borderline personality (B = .019, p = .005). Specifically, increased frequency of DDA victimization was associated with elevated symptoms across all three mental health outcomes measured.

Findings suggest that DDA victimization may serve as a risk factor for mental health sequelae among sexual minority young adults. This highlights the potential importance of addressing DDA within IPV intervention programming, aimed at mitigating psychopathology among a population highly vulnerable to DDA victimization.