Stalking victimization: A study about the prevalence in college students

Abstract

Stalking refers to persistent harassment behaviors that occur in forms of communication, contact, surveillance, and monitoring of an individual. This study aimed to find data on victimization by stalking in 205 college students at a university in an inland city of Sao Paulo, using the Inventario de Vitimacao por Stalking (IVS) developed in Portugal, due to the scarcity of studies on the subject in Brazil. The data collected through the IVS were analyzed using descriptive statistics, considering the group of participants in its total and divided according to gender, age, marital status and course of study, established by the data obtained from the questionnaire of identification. The results revealed that most survey participants (50,4%, n= 104) have experienced stalking according to the definition established by the IVS.