Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #102102

Rebecca J. Macy, PhD, ACSW, LCSW¹, Sandra L. Martin, PhD², Cecilia Casanueva³, Lawrence L. Kupper, PhD⁴, and Shenyang Guo, PhD¹. (1) School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tate-Turner-Kuralt, 301 Pittsboro Street, CB #3550, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, 919-843-2435, rjmacy@email.unc.edu, (2) Dept of Maternal & Child Health, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, CB#7400, 401 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400, (3) Department of MCH, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, CB#7445, 401 Rosenau Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7445, (4) Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, CB# 7420, McGavran-Greenberg Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7420

Intimate partner violence (IPV) may occur at any time in women's lives, even during pregnancy. Although IPV may have serious consequences for women's health and their children's wellbeing, less is known about how IPV changes throughout transitions in pregnancy status (i.e., does violence change when she becomes pregnant, after she has a baby, etc.). Knowing more about IPV transitions throughout pregnancy can help guide best practices toward helping battered women. This investigation strives to address these knowledge gaps by examining longitudinal IPV trends among pregnant women. Physical, psychological, and sexual violence levels were reported at seven times by 56 battered women and 48 comparison women in the year before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and in the year following delivery. Using hierarchical linear modeling (i.e., mixed modeling) to account for correlations among repeated measures, we examined IPV to determine if violence levels significantly differed over time and in comparison to a group of women who were not battered. The results show significant relationships between time and levels of IPV with reductions during pregnancy, from prenatal highs, in all types of violence. However, IPV began to increase again in the postpartum period. This investigation shows there are dynamic trends in IPV before, during, and after pregnancy and that pregnancy may be a reprieve from violence. However, this reprieve may not be permanent, with increasing levels of IPV in the postpartum period among battered women. Practice recommendations to help guide health professionals' assessments of and interventions with battered women are discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the occurrence and patterns of intimate partner violence throughout pregnancy transitions.
• Recognize the importance of assessing different types of intimate partner violence, psychological, physical and sexual, among women throughout pregnancy transitions.
• Identify times throughout pregnancy transitions when intimate partner violence interventions are critical.

Keywords: Battered Women, Pregnancy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.