Gender perception and dating violence attitude of women students of health sciences: a cross-sectional study

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the gender perception and attitude of dating violence of female undergraduate students studying in health sciences departments.Methods: The cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on the online platform between April and May 2022 with 276 midwifery and nutrition and dietetics department students studying at the health sciences faculty of a university. The data were obtained through the "Data Collection Form", "Attitude Scales Toward Dating Violence" and "Gender Perception Scale (GPS)".Results: It was found that the GPS total score average of female students was 102.36 +/- 10.73 and was a significant difference, and the attitude of women toward psychological violence applied by women in flirting and the attitude toward psychological and physical violence applied by men in flirting were found to be positively related to the mean of total scores. It was seen that GPS and the attitude of the woman toward psychological violence applied in flirting had a negative relationship with the mean score of the total score (p < 0.05).Conclusion: It was seen that the gender perceptions of the students who participated in the study were positively high. It was found that as the age of the students increased, their gender perceptions increased. It was seen that the average attitude of the participants to dating violence was low, which may be related to their inability to define violence. Gender equality can be adopted for students at every stage of education.