Özet:

INTRODUCTION: This study was conducted to determine the frequency of domestic violence among pregnant women, to review some variables that are believed to be associated, and to assess depression and anxiety levels. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on the pregnant women who presented at the Sakarya Training and Research Hospital Gynecology Polyclinic between 15 January 2013 and 15 July 2013. The study group comprised a total of 817 pregnant women (68.1%) admitted to the gynecology polyclinic of the hospital and agreed to take part in the study. The questionnaire forms prepared by accessing the literature in line with the study objective were completed by the investigators with a face-to-face interview. The women who suffered from a minimum of one form of domestic violence at least once throughout the pregnancy were regarded as having a history of violence during pregnancy. The Beck Depression Inventory was used to assess depression and the Beck Anxiety Inventory was used to assess anxiety level. Data were analyzed with Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: The age of the women in the study group ranged from 18 to 41 with a mean age of 28.28±4.66 years. In our study, pregnant women reported verbal violence most frequently (32.1%) and physical violence least frequently (1.3%). In the study group, frequency of domestic violence was found to be higher in pregnant women whose education level is secondary school and lower, who have an extended family, whose spouse is drug/substance user, married twice or more, whose first marriage age is 22 or below and whose number of pregnancies is 3 or more (p 0.05 for each). The frequency of suspected depression among pregnant women was determined to be 16.8% (n=137). The scores obtained from the Beck Anxiety Inventory by the pregnant women in the study group ranged from 0 to 51 with a mean score of 14.43±10.13. CONCLUSION: Violence during pregnancy affects maternal and child health negatively and causes important physical and emotional disorders, primarily depression, in women. Accordingly, it is recommended to determine risk groups during pregnancy follow-up and to provide spouses of pregnant women with information on changes that occur during pregnancy in order to prevent violence.

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