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Abstract
This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out during the period from February 2008 to march 2009, in the primary health care units in Ismailia city, to study the prevalence and risk factors of domestic violence against pregnant women attending urban PHC Units in Ismailia city.
A total of 258 women from Every married female pregnant women aged 15-49 years attending urban primary health care units in Ismailia city were included in the study.
The study was conducted at the four urban primary health care units in ismailia city which are El Salam primary health care unit, El sheikh zaeid primary health care unit, El sabaa banat primary health care unit and El shohada primary health care unit.
Data were collected by using a redesigned self administered questionnaire adapted from standard questionnaire from (EDHS) and (World Safe).
The mean age of the studied wives was about 26 years. About half of the studied wives (51.2%) have an intermediate level of education. about 82.5% of them are unemployed. Most of the wives (90.3%) are married with husband living in the house. About half of the studied wives (47.3%) have no children, and 23.6% have positive consanguinity with their husbands. Mean monthly income was 522.48 ± 346.2.
The mean ages of the husbands were about 32 years. More than half (56.6%) of the husbands have intermediate educational level. Fifty three and half percent of them are skilled workers. Shisha was the most common type of smoking (43.4%). Drinking alcohol and addiction to drugs was reported only in 3.5% and 5.4% respectively.
More than half of the studied wives have been exposed to violence (56.6%). In 83.1% of these cases the assaulter was only the husband. In-laws were the assaulters in about 17% of cases (2.7% brother in-laws, 2.7% father in-laws, 14.2% mother in-laws).
Most cases exposed to violence haven’t resulted in any effects on the pregnancy (84.5%). The most common effect was bleeding (7.4% of cases).
Regarding events related to exposure to violence the studied wives reported that the most common cause leading to violence from their point of view was nervous nature of the husbands (50%). The second cause in prevalence was financial problems (38.2%). In 23.6% of cases, the cause was disobeying the husbands.
More than half (55.4%) of the wives reported being punished by hitting during their childhood. Almost all (96.3%) of the wives whom witnessed father insulting or hitting the mother have felt extreme sadness and nervousness. 38.4% of husband have been exposed to physical violence during their childhood as reported by their wives, while 17.4% of them have witnessed domestic violence from their fathers toward their mothers.
The most common sequel of exposure to domestic violence was complaining of special symptoms (89.2%), followed by inability to perform usual duties (44.6%). Most of wives (80.3%) whom experienced inability to perform usual duties due to abuse reported that this effect lasted for not more than 3 days. 41.2% of wives went to emergency room were due to experiencing bleeding. The most common special symptom among experiencing them was headache that has been reported in 75%. 58.3% of the women experiencing special symptoms as a sequence of exposure to domestic violence reported experiencing sleep disorders. Anxiety was reported by 30.3% of wives.
There was a statistically significant relationship between exposure to domestic violence and age of the husbands, number of children, duration of marriage , monthly income, addictive habits of husband, consanguinity between the wife and her husband and exposure of each of wife and husband to abuse during childhood.
Predictors of exposure to domestic violence as detected by logistic regression analysis were age of husband, educational level of wife, educational level of husband, job of the husband, duration of marriage, number of children, monthly income, husband addictive habits and consanguinity.