Background: Over 300,000 pregnant women experience intimate partner violence during the course of their pregnancies each year, exposing both the mother and fetus to physical and emotional harm. Though many programs are available to victims of intimate partner violence, there continues to be a lack of effective interventions available to women who are pregnant while experiencing abuse.
Objective: To identify current research and programming as well as explore the perceptions of women who have experienced abuse during their pregnancies.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two women between December 2010 and February 2011.
Results: Three similar topics surfaced in both interviews conducted. First, the women interviewed articulated feeling trapped in staying with their abusers due to their pregnancies. Second, financial support emerged as a reason why participants stayed with their abusers. Finally, both participants expressed that they wish they had known of people to talk to about their abuse during the course of their pregnancies.
Conclusions: There appears to be a need for consistent and effective screening of intimate partner violence during prenatal appointments. In addition, there should be an increase in the development and implementation of programs that focus on providing individual support and placing emphasis on social support.
Public Health Significance: Intimate partner violence continues to be the leading cause of injury and death in women of childbearing age in the United States. Paired with pregnancy, the risks of negative health outcomes to both mother and fetus are high and the repercussions include short and long term injury, emotional distress, and even death. Economically, costs of the harm caused by intimate partner violence during pregnancy exceed close to six billion dollars each year. Intimate partner violence during pregnancy is of major public health concern and continuing to address it in research and the development of interventions is necessary in mitigating the impact that it makes on the lives of those who experience it.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04062011-145954 |
| Date | 29 June 2011 |
| Creators | Barkowitz, Elana Rachel |
| Contributors | Rachel Fusco, PhD, MSSW, Tammy Thomas, MPH, MSW, Martha Ann Terry, PhD, Jessica Burke, PhD, MHS |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04062011-145954/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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