Intimate partner violence among low-income African American women with a recent adverse pregnancy outcome

Background: Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) negatively impacts women's health directly and indirectly through depletion of personal, social, and economic resources and is associated with unintended pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Methods: Low-income African American women enrolled in an interconceptional care program for women who delivered a preterm or low birth-weight infant or experienced fetal death participated in structured interviews. Student's t-test compared women who experienced recent IPV to women who did not on Rosenberg Self-Esteem and Family APGAR scales. Fisher's Exact test and odds ratios were calculated to assess the association of recent IPV with economic stress and depression. Results: Of 108 respondents, (mean age 23.6 years, 72.6% household income <$500/month), 23.1% (n=25) reported experiencing IPV in the previous 3 months. The most frequent type of IPV was having daily activities controlled (n=20; 18.5%) and physical harm was reported by 32% of women who reported any form of IPV (n=8). Women who experienced recent IPV had lower scores on the Rosenberg Self Esteem scale (p-value .027) and Family APGAR (p-value .003), were more likely to have many unpaid bills (OR 3.6; CI 1.8-9.2), been recently homeless (OR 12.8; CI 2.4-68.4), and to have experienced recent depression (OR 6.17; CI 1.9-18.8) than women who did not report recent IPV. Conclusions: Women targeted by interconceptional care programs have a high prevalence of IPV, which provides further emphasis for the need to routinely screen for IPV. Women affected by IPV require targeted support with a particular emphasis on safe housing.