The effect of emotional abuse awareness psyco-educational program on the romantic relationship university students

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of 'Emotıonal Abuse Awareness Psyco-educatıonal Program' on the violence acceptance levels, emotional abuse awareness levels, and emotional abuse perpetration and victimization levels of university students. The study group of the research consists of 30 university students (15 experiments, 15 controls) who continue their education in different departments of Çukurova University in the Fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year and volunteer to participate in the study. While no experimental procedure was applied to the participants in the control group, a 9-session program lasting an average of 90 minutes was applied to the participants in the experimental group once a week. In the quantitative dimension of the study, the pretest-posttest control group model, which is one of the semi-experimental research designs, was used. In the quantitative dimension of the study, the pretest-posttest control group model was used. In the qualitative aspect of the research, the opinions of the participants about the program were obtained through focus group interviews. The participants in both the experimental and control groups were given a pre-test before the psycho-education program, a post-test after the termination, and a follow-up test 3 months later. After the posttest, a focus group interview was held with the participants in the experimental group. In the study, "Acceptance of Couple Violence Scale(ACVS)", "Emotional Abuse Awareness Scale in Romantic Relationship(EAASRR)" developed within the scope of the research, Multidimensional Emotional Abuse Scale (MMEA-TR) and an interview form prepared by the researcher were used. The data obtained were evaluated through non-parametric tests and qualitative data analysis. The findings obtained as a result of the research show that the 'Emotional Abuse Awareness Psycho-education Program' significantly decreased the ACVS scores of the participants in the experimental group and significantly increased the EAASRR total, 'Maintaining the Relationship' and 'Judgments Related to the Relationship' scores. It was determined that there was no change in the "Managing the Relationship" subscale score. It was determined that these effects continued in the follow-up test. It was determined that the 'Emotional Abuse Awareness Psycho-education Program' did not make a significant difference in the pre-experiment and post-experiment measurements in MMEA-TR scores. However, in the follow-up measurement, it was understood that the perpetration dimension of the MMEA-TR was effective in increasing the 'Control' and 'Humiliation' lower scores and the victimizatiom dimension in increasing the total score and the 'Control' subscale scores. Participants stated that the program was effective for them and increased their awareness of emotional abuse thanks to the program. The findings are discussed in the light of possible studies to prevent dating violence. Key words: Emotional abuse, acceptance of violence, psycho-education, university students, dating violence, intimacy partner violence, romantic relationship