Adolescent dating violence measurement and psychometric terminology: a bibliometric review

Adolescent dating violence is a multidimensional public health problem encompassing physical, sexual, psychological, relational, coercive, stalking, and technology-facilitated behaviors within current or former dating relationships. As prevalence estimates, risk profiles, prevention priorities, and clinical decisions depend on how the construct is defined and operationalized, the organization of the measurement literature warrants systematic mapping. This bibliometric review mapped scientific production at the intersection of adolescent dating violence and measurement or psychometric terminology. A search was conducted on the Web of Science and Scopus on 20 March 2026, and a final corpus of 6,125 bibliographic records published from 1987 to 2026 was analyzed using bibliometrix package in R. The analysis focused on temporal growth, sources, authors, institutions, countries, keyword co-occurrence, and conceptual structure; a logistic model was used to summarize the cumulative production of literature. The output increased markedly after 2014 and reached 802 records in 2025. The logistic model yielded a projected upper asymptote of K = 7,861.20 records and a midpoint of tm = 36.44 years from the 1986 baseline (approximately 2022.44), with R² = 0.87. These estimates were interpreted cautiously because of residual deviations and incomplete 2026 coverage. The literature was concentrated in journals addressing interpersonal violence, psychology, mental health, and assessment. Thematic mapping connected validation, reliability, adolescent development, mental health, gender, aggression, and prevalence. However, cross-cultural adaptation beyond highly represented regions and inclusive measurement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, non-binary, and other sexual and gender identities (LGBTQIA+) adolescents remained peripheral. The field is expanding and moving toward consolidation, but publication volume should not be equated with methodological maturity.