Discussion
’ help-seeking behavior
RECRUITMENT
To our knowledge, no previous study has examined the effectiveness of a technology-based safety decision and planning aid to promote concerned friends’ use of supportive safety behaviors with a female friend in an abusive relationship, even though evidence indicates friends are likely to witness abusive behaviors and/or be recipients of IPV disclosure. We successfully recruited a convenience sample of 18–24-year-old students on 41 college/university campuses in Maryland and Oregon who were concerned about a female-identified friend in an unsafe relationship with a current or ex-partner and retained 98.2% of them over one year, randomizing them to the tailored myPlan app or to a static (non-tailored) study website with basic emergency safety planning strategies to support a friend, where to find campus or internet-based information or help, and two resources (a national IPV hotline and national LGBTQ hotline). In comparison to the control condition, after one use of myPlan, we found that users had significantly reduced decisional conflict in terms of increasing clarity of values for intervening, and significantly increased decisional preparedness. At 12 months, myPlan users continued to have greater decisional preparedness than control users, but the difference was no longer statistically significant at < 0.05, although still large (After one use of myPlan, we found the intervention group had a greater reduction in one of the components of decisional conflict; they reported greater clarity regarding their own values Both intervention and control concerned friends started off relatively high at baseline (nearly 3 on a 4-point scale) in terms of confidence to help a friend in an abusive relationship (e.g., to provide help while staying safe, recognize the signs of IPV, help with resources, talk with someone about concerns in their own relationship, and in particular, to provide unconditional support). The high baseline levels of confidence may reflect the non-representativeness of our sample; compared to the typical college student, those who responded to recruitment materials and enrolled in this study had already recognized abuse and nearly all had actively intervened with at least one strategy. Over time, both groups also increased on every item related to confidence in their ability to intervene, but the intervention group had a significantly greater increase in confidence on the item regarding their ability to talk with someone regarding concerns in their own relationships. Research on survivors’ help-seeking behavior has thoroughly documented that few survivors access formal services; a large percentage may never disclose IPV to anyone at all [Descriptive baseline findings underscore that – consistent with extant research with college students [Prior research has documented the impact of IPV on friends or family of the survivor; some have reported feeling good about their efforts to help, but many do not [