En la Diana: Healthy Relationships in Adolescence and Prevention of Gender-Based Violence

The “En la Diana” programme is the first gender-based violence prevention programme developed from a predictive socio-cognitive model of human behaviour and designed to intervene on the strongest determinants underlying boys’ perpetration of gender-based violence behaviours and girls’ acceptance of them. Its aim is to generate behavioural changes that promote healthy relationships among adolescents. It consists of 5 sessions delivered in parallel, with boys and girls participating separately. The programme has recently received recognition from the Foundation for Research, Development and Application of Psychology of the Valencian Community as a programme of scientific and professional interest. It is an innovative programme that takes a different approach from traditional programmes and has been designed by selecting the techniques with the strongest evidence for modifying behaviour among adolescents. The intervention has been protocolised so that professionals can implement it accurately and its effectiveness can be evaluated and further improved.

The “En la Diana” prevention programme stems from a line of research initiated in 2014 on the prevention of gender-based violence in adolescence, supported by the Generalitat Valenciana through a VALi+D predoctoral grant, which led to the doctoral thesis “Prediction of the Perpetration and Acceptance of Behaviours Precursor to Gender-Based Violence in Adolescence” (Nardi, 2017), awarded the Extraordinary Doctorate Award by Miguel Hernández University (2016–2017). This line of research arose in response to the demonstrated lack of effectiveness of prevention programmes in reducing the prevalence of the problem and involved the first application of a validated socio-cognitive model of human behaviour with more than 2,000 adolescents from 16 educational centres with diverse sociodemographic characteristics in Alicante.

The “En la Diana” prevention programme may be of interest to public bodies wishing to prevent gender-based violence among adolescents and promote healthy relationships, as well as parents’ associations and private educational centres.

There are numerous gender-based violence prevention programmes at national and international level (see Casas, 2013; Cornelius and Resseguie, 2007; De la Rue, Polanin, Espelage and Pigott, 2017; Shorey, Cornelius and Bell, 2008). However, at best, they have only managed to produce changes in attitudes towards gender-based violence and increase participants’ knowledge of the issue, but generally fail to produce sustained behavioural changes over time (Casas, 2013; Cornelius and Resseguie, 2007; De la Rue et al., 2017; Fernández-González, Calvete and Sánchez-Álvarez, 2020; WHO [OMS], 2010). In other words, they do not reduce the perpetration of gender-based violence behaviours by boys or their acceptance by girls. Only one North American programme, which requires 10 sessions delivered over 5 consecutive years, achieved some behavioural changes (Foshee et al., 2005), although not in relation to experiencing psychological violence, the most prevalent and normalised form of gender-based violence and one that precedes other forms of violence. Furthermore, based on the scientific literature reviewed, none of these programmes has been developed from an evidence-based behavioural model that enables intervention on the determinants most directly related to the perpetration and acceptance of such behaviours.

The “En la Diana” programme has therefore been developed to overcome these limitations, with the aim of being effective and efficient in the primary and secondary prevention of the problem. The programme consists of 5 sessions with boys and 5 sessions with girls (delivered in parallel) and aims to prevent the perpetration and acceptance of psychological violence behaviours that are often present from the beginning of an abusive relationship during adolescence, including among at-risk populations.

The “En la Diana” programme differs from traditional programmes in the following respects:

1. It is based on the recommendations of the WHO ([WHO], 2010) and experts (Cornelius and Resseguie, 2007; de la Rue et al., 2017; Shorey et al., 2008) to use evidence-based theoretical models. In this case, the Reasoned Action Approach was applied, a socio-cognitive model resulting from 40 years of research whose effectiveness has been extensively demonstrated.
2. The model was tested with more than 2,000 adolescents from 16 different educational centres, adding robustness to the “En la Diana” programme.
3. It has a greater likelihood of being effective in achieving behavioural change because it targets the causal determinants of behaviour and behavioural change (Michie and Abraham, 2004).
4. By using an evidence-based theoretical model, it facilitates programme evaluation and therefore makes it possible to identify what works and what does not, allowing both the theory and the prevention programme to be refined (Michie and Abraham, 2004).
5. It addresses gender-based violence behaviours that are often present from the beginning of an abusive relationship, as recommended by international expert Lori Heise (2011). It focuses on the psychological violence behaviours identified by a group of experts as the most relevant to prevent. It is essentially a primary prevention programme, considered the level of prevention with the greatest potent