Dating violence is a relevant social problem in adolescent and young adult romantic relationships. Particular attention has begun to be paid to it by the scientific community in the last two decades. It may involve a sexual, physical and psychological dimension, requiring different prevention and intervention strategies.

To analyse the effect of socio-demographic and contextual variables on attitudes to dating violence.

This is a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional descriptive and correlational study. Questionnaires to characterise socio-demographics and dating context and the Scale of Attitudes about Dating Violence (SADV), were applied to 243 adolescents attending the 10th, 11th and 12th years of schooling in a Portuguese secondary school.

The adolescents are over 17 years in age (40.7%), with a predominance of girls (56.0%). They reside mainly in rural areas with most attending the 10th year. More than half live with their parents (91.7%). The vast majority are Catholic. Nearly all of the participants are dating or have dated. We found statistically significant differences in all types of violence with regards to gender, the religion they practice and adolescents who have had sexual relations. The type of violence exerted was mainly psychological.

The results point to the need to integrate the topic of dating violence in adolescent education using active methods with the effective participation of everyone involved in the process (adolescents, parents, teachers and health professionals). Only in this way will it be possible to develop healthy emotional relationship skills.