Digital Abuse between Intimate Partners: an integrative literature review

Abstract

The objective of the current article is to obtain a better understanding about the theme of digital abuse among intimate partners through the analysis of the scientific literature. For this purpose, we carried out an integrative literature review in four databases: SciELO, Virtual Health Library (VHL), Pepsic and Pubmed in the period from 2015 to 2020. After considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 33 articles were identified and analyzed. Most of the articles were written in North American English and published in 2018. They were cross-sectional and quantitative studies and made use of standardized instruments. The reviewed studies emphasize the prevalence, consequences, risk factors, the very definition of the phenomenon and the association of digital abuse with beliefs about love and offline violence. According to our findings, investigating the experience of digital abuse is an important task since it is a common phenomenon, especially among young people, and there are many health-affecting consequences. In addition, these findings add to the growing body of evidence on the negative effects of cyber dating abuse, and it is believed that risk determination is useful for clinical and educational interventions.