Pregnant Women and Expectant Fathers: Power and Partner Violence in Haiti

Objective To assess intimate partner violence and perceptions of power among pregnant women and expectant fathers in rural Haiti.

Study Design In this cross sectional, community based study, 200 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics and 93 expectant fathers referred by pregnant women participated in private, semistructured interviews. We used the Conflicts Tactics Scale to measure 3 domains of violence: emotional, physical, and sexual. Both men and women were interviewed privately and separately by trained interviewers. Chi-squared analyses identified population differences.

Results Expectant fathers reported perpetrating significantly less sexual and emotional abuse than experienced by pregnant women; 38% of women reported experiencing emotional abuse during their pregnancy. Yet only 6% of men reported perpetrating emotional abuse on their partners. Thirty-Nine percent of women reported sexual abuse, whereas only 3% of men reported perpetrating sexual abuse on their partners. However, no significant difference in physical abuse was noted. Power perceptions differed significantly between pregnant women and expectant fathers, with men perceiving greater equity than women; 62% of women felt the man had the power to make decisions about what to do compared to 17% of men. Men were more likely than women to feel that power was equally shared by both members of the couple (78% vs. 34%, respectively).

Conclusion Few works examine the role of partner power and violence in expectant fathers. Violence in pregnancy adversely impacts perinatal, maternal, and neonatal health, and is a associated with increased HIV risk. Power perceptions significantly differed, with men perceiving more relationship equity. Interventions targeting men and women should address power imbalances, couple communication and decision making as well as definitions of violence in intimate relationships. Normative perceptions of sexual force and emotional insults in the context of married/committed partnerships may result in men underreporting events and not recognizing partners' decision-making rights.