Prevalence and its predictors of intimate partner violence against pregnant women amid COVID-19 pandemic in Southwest Ethiopia, 2021: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES: Preventive measures like staying-at-home and social distancing are among the top strategies on the list to avert the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 and its consequences. However, this strategy brings off another shadow pandemic of intimate partner violence against women, and no study has been done to assess the magnitude of intimate partner violence against pregnant women during the pandemic in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the prevalence of intimate partner violence and its predictors in Southwest Ethiopia amid the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted, from 15 June 2021 to 15 August 2021, on a total of 590 pregnant women recruited by systematic random sampling techniques. Pretested structured questionnaires were used to collect data, and the data were entered using EpiData version 3.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 24. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors of intimate partner violence. Finally, statistical significance was declared at a p-value <0.05. RESULTS: The prevalence of intimate partner violence was 39.2%. Of this, 29.8%, 26.8%, and 22.2% of the pregnant women had experienced physical, sexual, and emotional intimate partner violence, respectively. Being illiterate (adjusted odds ratio = 2.36, 95% confidence interval: 1.33–4.19), having illiterate husbands (adjusted odds ratio = 4.79, 95% confidence interval: 2.69–8.55), household decisions made by the husband alone (adjusted odds ratio = 4.91, 95% confidence interval: 3.74–9.33), and pandemic-induced economic downturns (adjusted odds ratio = 9.03, 95% confidence interval: 5.18–15.98) were the predictors that were significantly associated with intimate partner violence. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of intimate partner violence against pregnant women during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has been found to be high in the study area. Thus, more efforts should be tried to integrating intimate partner violence screening in maternal and child healthcare services, and early identification of high-risk individuals, and continuous community-based awareness creation activities are recommended.