Violence in couple relationships and its relation with the myths of romantic love in female nursing students of a Public University, Chile

Abstract

Violence against women is a global public health emergency, it involves dating violence. The study sought to establish a relationship between the different types of violence and the myths of romantic love. The methodology was non-experimental quantitative, cross-correlational design. The sample consisted of 163 female nursing students from a Public University. The validated scales used were dating violence questionnaire adapted by Rodríguez et. al (2017), (DVQ-R) (i.e., Detachment, Humiliation, Coercion, Physical Violence and Sexual Violence) and the scale of "myths of romantic love" by Ramírez- Carrasco et. al (2021), (better half; pairing; exclusivity; jealousy; omnipotence; free will; marriage; eternal passion), Spearman's rho coefficient was used for correlation analyses. It was determined that; 26.7% of the students declare suffering some type of violence from their partner, however, when applying the DVQ-R scale, it is determined that at least 40% suffer violent behavior in their relationship. The myths of jealousy had the highest correlations with the violence of detachment, coercion, humiliation, and sexual violence; the mating myth was correlated with detachment, coercion, and physical violence; the myth of free will with detachment and coercion, the other myths were not related to any type of violence. It is concluded that the myths of romantic love are related to violence in the couple, and it is urgent to develop an intervention program to eradicate them, in addition to considering making violence by coercion and detachment visible, often dismissed.