Domestic Violence and Pregnancy in Rural West Virginia

Abstract

Recently, domestic violence has been recognized as a health problem of crisis proportion. Pregnant women are at twice the risk of battery. Abuse during pregnancy affects one woman in six. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the incidence of domestic violence in pregnant patients residing in a rural area of West Virginia, and to describe the demographic characteristics of those abused women. The medical records of 63 pregnant women at a rural health clinic were reviewed. Twelve of 63 pregnant women (19%) reported recent or past abuse; 12.7% reported physical abuse and 9.5% reported mental abuse. Four out of 63 subjects (6.3%) were treated for physical abuse during pregnancy. Significant relationships existed between STD history and abuse (x2 = 8.672, df = 1, p = .0032), tobacco use and abuse (x2 = 9.079, df = 1, p = .0026), and marital status and abuse (x2 = 10.03, df = 3, p = .0183) in pregnant women. Individual, provider and community strategies for assessment and intervention with abused women in pregnancy are presented. Keywords: domestic violence, abuse, pregnancy, rural, community http://dx.doi.org/10.14574/ojrnhc.v1i3.483