Intimate partner violence against pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the pooled prevalence of (intimate partner violence) IPV against pregnant women in the COVID-19 pandemic. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus for observational studies regarding the prevalence of IPV against pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. The search was performed with the following keywords: intimate partner violence, domestic violence, battered women, wife assault, partner assault, wife abuse, partner abuse, femicide, domestic homicide, pregnancy, gestation, pregnant women, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, 2019-nCoV, Coronavirus Disease-19, 2019 Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan Coronavirus, SARS Coronavirus 2, Wuhan Seafood Market Pneumonia Virus. Heterogeneity between the studies was assessed using Cochran's Q test and I-2 index. In addition, a random-effects model was used to estimate the prevalence of IPV. Data analysis was performed in Stata software version 16. Six articles met our inclusion criteria, which were conducted on 2213 pregnant women. The pooled prevalence of total IPV was estimated at 22 percent (95 percent Confidence Interval [CI]: 4-40 percent). Moreover, the pooled prevalence of psychological, physical, and sexual violence was reported to be 24 percent (95 percent CI: 13-35 percent), 14 percent (95 percent CI: 7-20 percent), and 6 percent (95 percent CI: 4-9 percent), respectively. Publication bias was significant (P = .01). According to the results, IPV against pregnant women has been relatively prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, identifying the women who are at the risk of IPV is essential to preventing the consequences of maternal-fetal abuse and designing strategies to facilitate the reporting of violence during pandemics.

Automated summary

This study aimed to estimate the overall prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) against pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis of six relevant studies revealed that IPV has been relatively prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the prevalence of psychological, physical, and sexual violence reported to be 24%, 14%, and 6% respectively.