Make a Move: A Multi-method Quasi-Experimental Study of a Program Targeting Psychosexual Health and Sexual and Dating Violence for Dutch Male Adolescents

Adolescent sexual and dating violence (SDV) is a worldwide problem. Although male adolescents in vocational education or youth care may be at increased risk of perpetrating SDV, little is known about effective gender-specific prevention. Therefore, we conducted a quasi-experimental evaluation of a Dutch group-counseling program promoting psychosexual health and preventing SDV among male adolescents aged 12–18 years: Make a Move. The 66 participating male adolescents completed three questionnaires (baseline, post-test, 3-month follow-up; 48.5% retention). We also conducted interviews with a subsample of four adolescents and two trainers and performed observations in one group. With these multi-method, multi-informant data, we evaluated program effectiveness on the six intended outcomes (attitudes, social norms, self-efficacy, skills, intentions and SDV perpetration) by 1) statistically comparing self-reports between the intervention and control groups; 2) thematically analyzing interview data and 3) describing three individual male adolescent cases, triangulating questionnaire, interview, and observation data. We found limitations in program integrity, and evidence for program effectiveness on skills, mixed evidence on attitudes, self-efficacy and intentions, but no evidence for effectiveness on socials norms or SDV perpetration. We also found indications of adverse effects on attitudes and intentions. We offer suggestions for program refinement and future program evaluations.