(PS2-C66) Problematic Digital Dating Experiences Among Psychiatrically Hospitalized Adolescents: Associations with Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors

Social media is reshaping teens’ social landscapes, with important implications for interpersonal relationships, including experiences with dating partners. Research is emerging on how teens in dating relationships interact online, especially among sexual minority teens and teens with suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). Dating relationships are particularly important, especially given that problematic dating experiences and dating violence are known to heighten adolescent suicide risk though much of this research has been done on heterosexual adolescents and in offline contexts. Thus, the aims of this study include: (1) Explore the prevalence of problematic digital dating experiences, including monitoring and coercion/threats, in a sample of youth with recent suicidal ideation or behavior. (2) Examine associations among problematic digital dating experiences and STB severity. (3) Explore differences between sexual minority and non-sexual minority youth in digital dating experiences.

A total of 53 adolescent girls and gender minority teens, (Mage = 14.7; 11.5% gender minorities; 60.4% sexual minorities; 75.4% White, 25.4% Black, 22.9% Hispanic or Latinx) who reported having had a dating partner in the past 6 months, were recruited from an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Participants completed self-report measures including demographics, digital dating abuse  (i.e., monitoring, threatening and/or coercive behaviors through technology), and suicidal ideation.  A brief clinical interview assessing lifetime history of suicide attempts was also conducted.. Problematic digital dating experiences were assessed using an abbreviated version of the Electronic Behavior of Adolescents in Relationships (EBAR) questionnaire that has two subscales assessing monitoring (7 items) and threats/coercion behaviors (7 items) (Johnson, 2017).

Results suggested that problematic dating experiences were associated with STBs among high-risk teens. Teens with a history of suicide attempts scored significantly higher on the EBAR threatening/coercion subscale (M = .44, SD = .66), t(51) = -2.40, p = .01 and marginally significant on the monitoring subscale (M = .78, SD = .77), t(38) = -1.91, p = .06. Further supporting the relationship between STBs and problematic online dating experiences, teens with higher suicidal ideation severity have significantly higher scores on the threat/coercion subscales of the EBAR r(51) = .30, p = .03. No difference was found between sexual minority teens’ monitoring (M = .68, SD = .74) and threat/coercion experiences (M = .39, SD = .61) and heterosexual, cisgender teens’ experiences with monitoring (M = .72, SD = .69),  t(51) = .20, p = .84 or threat/coercion behaviors from their partners (M = .33, SD = .58), t(51) = -.37, p = .72.

These results suggest that problematic dating experiences may be an important risk factor for STBs and more research is needed to explore their impact.