Intimate partner violence, employment and social support among women seeking elective abortion services In Iowa

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a major public health issue worldwide. The purpose of this dissertation is to characterize violence perpetrated by an intimate partner against a “high-risk” group of pregnant women who sought elective abortion services at a family planning clinic. Analyses were based on the Iowa Women’s Health Experience Survey (IWHES), a cross-sectional study of 519 abortion patients who completed an anonymous, selfadministered questionnaire over a period of seven months. IWHES eligibility criteria were ‘Seeking pregnancy termination’; ‘Age ≥ 18 years’; ‘Iowa resident’ and ‘Fluent in English or Spanish’. The survey instrument covered physical, sexual and psychological types of violence, health correlates of violence as well as demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics of participating women and their current intimate partners. Aim I examined the prevalence of physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse by employment characteristics of elective abortion patients and their current intimate partners. Aim II examined associations of substance use, depression and social support with physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse perpetrated by current intimate partners against women seeking pregnancy termination. To achieve the analytic goals of Aims I and II, the study sample was restricted to women who had a current partner and valid IPV data. The overall prevalence of physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse perpetrated by a current partner was 12.3%, with some overlap between the different IPV subtypes. In general, the prevalence of IPV did not differ significantly by employment status or by broadly defined occupational groups of women and their partners. However, a trend was noted whereby a woman’s employment and a partner’s unemployment were associated with greater likelihood of IPV. Specifically, the prevalence of IPV was highest among couples where the woman was employed and the partner was unemployed. Consistently positive associations were 1