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Research Article
Abstract
Apparently healthy pregnant women with a gestational age of < 20 weeks were interviewed about
sociodemographic details, marital history, antenatal history and presence of domestic violence. Of the
428 pregnant women, 31.3% suffered from domestic violence. Emotional and verbal abuse (58.2%) was
the most common form. Women with younger age at marriage and with assisted conception were at a
higher risk for suffering from domestic violence. Pregnant wives of men with a lower level of education,
unemployment or employment as unskilled labourers and addiction to alcohol and tobacco were at higher
risk for domestic violence.
Corresponding Author: Dr. Suneela Garg, Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi.
E-mail Id: gargsuneela@gmail.com
Orcid Id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2196-1607
How to cite this article: Garg S, Singh MM, Ramalingam A et al. Prevalence and Determinants of Domestic Violence among
Attendees of an Antenatal Clinic in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Delhi, India. Epidem Int 2018; 3(2): 17-23.
partner violence.3 In addition to being a Human Rights issue, sex, type of family, number of people in the house, total
domestic violence also has a lot of health consequences. monthly family income, religion, educational level of each
This may range from depression, post-traumatic stress participant and their husbands was used for data collection.
disorder, sleep difficulties, eating disorders, emotional Personal habits of women and her partner such as tobacco
distress, and suicide attempts. During pregnancy domestic use, consumption of alcohol, substance abuse, history of
violence results in miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm delivery reproductive tract infections (RTIs), history of any criminal
and low birth weight.3 Few studies have been done in act and assessment of various aspects of domestic violence
India to estimate the burden of domestic violence among was done. The study was approved by the Institutional
pregnant women and the factors associated with domestic Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained from the
violence.4,5 With this background, a study was done among study participants. Confidentiality of the data was ensured.
the attendees of an antenatal clinic in Delhi to find out the Those who were found to suffer from domestic violence
prevalence and determinants of domestic violence. were referred for counselling services and were provided
with details of help line numbers. The data was analysed
Materials and methods using SPSSS version 17. The continuous variables were
reported as mean, and standard deviation and categorical
This was a cross sectional study conducted in Antenatal variables were reported as percentages. Chi-square test
clinic of a tertiary care hospital located in Central Delhi. The and student’s t-test were used to test the associations
antenatal Out Patient Department (OPD) in the hospital between various factors and domestic violence. A p value
takes place six days a week (Monday to Saturday). The of <0.05 will be considered as significant.
average antenatal load in a routine OPD was approximately
50 new pregnant women (registering for the first time) Results
with an average of 10 women with gestation period up
to 20 weeks. All pregnant women residing in Delhi during Demographic details
past one year who have gestation period up to 20 weeks
and attending ANC clinic of hospital who were apparently The mean age of the study participants was found to be
healthy women based on self-report and those who gave 24.6±3.8, and the mean age at marriage was 20.6±2.8.
consent were included in the study. Females with mental Almost all the antenatal women were married (99.8%) and
handicap, incapacitating physical health problems (acute, more than two third were living in joint families (67.3%).
chronic, communicable and non-communicable diseases More than half of the women were Muslims (55.8%), and
including HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart problems) nearly seventy percent were belonging to the General
were excluded. A pre-tested questionnaire compromising caste (69.4%). Most of them were unemployed (96%) and
of socio-demographic and obstetric details like age of were living in Delhi for more than five years (80.6%). Nearly
subject, age of marriage, duration of marriage, the age thirty percent (28.5%) were educated up to the level of
gap of couple, occupation, gravidity, parity, planned or high school, and another 15% were illiterate. Nearly half
unplanned pregnancy, number of living children and their of the population belonged to either Upper Class (15.4%)
or Upper Middle Class (30.4%) (Table 1).
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809
Garg S et al.
19 Epidem. Int. 2018; 3(2)
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809
Garg S et al.
Epidem. Int. 2018; 3(2) 20
Clinical details Number (%) Nearly one-third of the study subjects (n=134,31.3%) had
suffered from some form of Domestic Violence. The most
Gravida
common type of violence was emotional (58.2%) followed
<=2 284 (66.4) by economical (40.3%). The other types of violence were
>2 144 (33.6) physical (31.3%) and sexual (21.4%) (Table 4).
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809
Garg S et al.
21 Epidem. Int. 2018; 3(2)
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809
Garg S et al.
Epidem. Int. 2018; 3(2) 22
Duration of stay
>=1 years to <3 years 17 (30.9) 38 (69.1)
>=3 years to 5 years 8 (28.6) 20 (71.4) 0.115 0.944
>=5 years 109 (31.6) 236 (68.4)
Education Status of Husband
Illiterate 28 (48.3) 30 (51.7)
Below Primary 4 (66.7) 2 (33.3)
20.219 0.003
Primary 16 (18.2) 72 (81.8)
High School 38 (31.9) 81 (68.1)
Senior Secondary 26 (31.1) 58 (69)
Graduate and above 20 (29) 49 (71)
Occupation status of husband
Unemployed 3 (37.5) 5 (62.5)
Unskilled worker 42 (44.2) 53 (55.8)
Semi-skilled worker 38 (30.4) 87 (69.6)
12.369 0.054
Skilled worker 25 (29.8) 59 (70.2)
Clerical/Shop worker 16 (23.9) 51 (76.1)
Semi-Professional 4 (16.7) 20 (83.3)
Professional 6 (24) 19 (76)
History of Tobacco/ Alcohol Uses
by the Husband
Yes (n=142) 55 (38.7) 87 (61.3) 5.446 0.020
No (n=286) 79 (27.6) 207 (72.4)
History of Spontaneous
Conception
Yes (n=316) 92 (29.1) 224 (70.9) 3.878 0.04
No (n=46) 20 (43.5) 26 (56.5)
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809
Garg S et al.
23 Epidem. Int. 2018; 3(2)
ISSN: 2455-7048
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2455.7048.201809