Intimate partner violence during pregnancy and adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes in Adana province center

Aim: Domestic violence is an important public health problem. The aim of this study is to investigate the frequency of domestic violence during pregnancy in Adana province center and the effects of violence on the health of mother and newborn. Material and Method: This is a cross-sectional study. The hospitals in Adana province center were divided into 3 groups as state-private-research hospital and a hospital was selected from each layer by simple random method. A proportional sampling was performed according to the number of births in the selected hospitals and a total of 640 people were interviewed face-to-face between October-December 2016. The questionnaire included sociodemographic information, violence exposure questions, and Edinburgh postpartum depression scale. Frequency tables, chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used as statistical analysis. Results: The average age of participants was 26,96 ± 5,70. 12,0% of the women were illiterate. 60,1% of the participants had monthly household income ≤1300 tl. Prevalence of intimate partner violence was found as 24,1% before pregnancy and 17,5% during pregnancy. The rate of emotional, physical and sexual intimate partner violence exposure during pregnancy was found as 16,7%, 2,8% and 3,3% respectively. It was found that women who had an unplanned pregnancy was 2,38 times, women who had insufficient prenatal follow-up was 2,39 times more likely to expose to intimate partner violence during pregnancy. Participants who experienced intimate partner violence during pregnancy were 1,80 times more likely to smoke during pregnancy, 4,60 times more likely to have depression in pregnancy and 2,66 times more likely to have low birth weight infant. Conclusion: As a result of our study, it has been determined that intimate partner violence affects both maternal and neonatal health negatively.