This research studies the couple relationships in adolescents and the behaviours within them. A couple relationship is a sentimental bond of a romantic type that unites two people of the same or different gender (Pérez and Gardey, 2021). The concept of romantic love is strongly underpinned by a whole series of myths that are culturally shared and transmitted through the various channels of socialisation (Foucault, 2006; Ferrer and Bosch, 2013). Romantic love myths are the set of socially shared beliefs about the "true nature" of love and are often fictitious, absurd, misleading, irrational and impossible to fulfil (Yela, 2003). Assuming the romantic love model and the associated myths may facilitate the violence relationships (Repullo, 2011). Distorted beliefs about love and violence in relationships are associated with a greater likelihood of being victims or aggressors (Jiménez, 2021; Lara and Gómez-Urrutia, 2019).   Most adolescents identify violence in their intimate partner relationships and consider it a normal process (Garrido and Barceló, 2019). On the other hand, there are studies that show that people with low self-esteem have a greater internalisation of romantic beliefs, which favours or maintains intimate partner violence and relationships based on control (Bisquert et al. 2019). Building healthy self-esteem protects and makes acceptance of violence or harm by others less likely (André, 2006).

There is a need for robust education strategies to address the problem. This research adapts Lara and Providell's (2020) programme to promote healthy relationships. The aim of this study is to evaluate the adapted programme, which addresses the myths of romantic love, the acceptance and normalisation of violence in young people and its relationship to self-esteem. We hypothesise that the programme will work and therefore, the intervention will decrease the acceptance of myths and violence, and increase self-esteem, promoting healthy relationships. This is a quasi-experimental study with a control and experimental group, with pretest and posttest.

The participants in the study were 112 adolescent students from three secondary schools in southern Spain. Their ages ranged from 12 to 16 years old, with a mean age of 13.41 (M=13.41; SD=1.266).

Six interventions were carried out in each of the centres, each lasting 60 minutes. The evaluation instrument used was a questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic data, the scale on Myths of Romantic Love and Acceptance of Violence by Lara and Providell (2020) and the Self-Esteem Scale by Rosenberg (1965) adapted to Spanish by Echeburúa (1995).  The intervention lasted 2 months.

The results show statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups, with the experimental group obtaining the highest scores on the scales applied in Acceptance of the Myths of Romantic Love (Z=-4.24, p=<.001), and in Acceptance of Violence (Z=-2.673, p=.008). In contrast, the paired samples t-test for Self-Esteem (t=.088, p=.930) was not significant.  Therefore, the starting hypothesis is partially fulfilled, the programme works by decreasing the acceptance of romantic love myths and the acceptance of violence, but does not increase self-esteem.

It is concluded that it can be applied as an educational strategy that facilitates the prevention of violence in an effective way with little time cost, allowing the promotion of well-being and discouraging violence in adolescent couples.

1.Design It is a quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design of repeated measures (pre-post) with a control group. 2.Participants The study included 112 adolescent students from Secondary Schools, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling. For the analyses, only 79 young people were included, as those who did not answer both pre-test and post-test questionnaires were excluded. Incomplete questionnaires were also excluded. The ages of the participants ranged from 12 to 16 years, with a mean age of 13.41 years. 68.4% (n=54) were female and 31.6% (n=25) were male. Of these, 12.7% (n=10) were Roma. Regarding the type of relationship, 20.3% (n=16) reported having a current partner, 6.3% (n=5) had not had a partner for two months, 17.7% (n=14) had not had a partner for more than two months and 55.7% (n=44) had never had a partner. 3.Procedure The questionnaire was administered in the participants' classroom in physical format, with paper and pen. A trained member of the research team provided them with the necessary instructions to fill in the questionnaires and was available to answer any questions. The six interventions were adapted from Lara and Providell's (2020) workshop "Healthy relationships for the prevention of violence in young couple relationships". The sessions were delivered over two months in 60-minute sessions. 4.Instruments The instrument used in the pretest and posttests consisted of questions asking for information on socio-demographic characteristics (gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, type of current relationship and sexual orientation), and by the Romantic Love Myths and Violence Acceptance scale of Lara and Providell (2020) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale (Echeburúa, 1995; Rosenberg, 1965). Lara and Providell's (2020) scale is composed of ten items with two response alternatives, Agree and Disagree, with an α of 0.80. Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (1965) adapted to Spanish by Echeburúa (1995) consists of 10 general items that score from 1 to 4 on a Likert-type scale, with an α=.92. 2.6.Ethical aspects The project was submitted to the Bioethics Commission of the University of Almeria, with reference UALBIO2020/003. Anonymity and the possibility to stop answering the scales at any time were guaranteed.

With regard to the socio-demographic data, it should be noted that most of the participants were women (68.4%) and that there was a 12.7% participation of Roma ethnicity. It is worth mentioning that there are participants who have never had a partner (55.7%) and that almost the entire sample is of heterosexual orientation (92.4%). It is worth noting that with such a high percentage of people who have never had a partner, the interventions carried out should specialise in the prevention and promotion of healthy relationships with the advantage of reducing the likelihood of violence in future relationships. As for the results, the study shows that there is a low baseline acceptance of the myths of romantic love and violence, and a high overall self-esteem score that matches the norm for the general population. The analysis showed that the control and experimental groups started from the same baseline on all variables; therefore, there were no significant differences prior to the intervention. It can be observed that, after the intervention, the control group shows no significant differences and the experimental group does. Therefore, we can conclude that the intervention works on the variables Myth Acceptance and Violence Acceptance, but there are no significant differences on the variable Self-Esteem. Therefore, the intervention has only worked in part. Although the starting point is low acceptance of the myths of romantic love and violence, the intervention improves these variables. The null result in Self-esteem may be because it is a more complex construct and more interventions may be necessary for an improvement to take place. The hypothesis is partially fulfilled. The results show that the programme works by decreasing the acceptance of romantic love myths and the acceptance of violence. However, it does not increase self-esteem.

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