BACKGROUND: Domestic violence during pregnancy is a global public health problem due to its associated maternal and fetal outcomes. However, this problem is not well studied or reported in North-East Nigeria. This study aims to assess the prevalence and various forms of domestic violence and factors associated with domestic violence among pregnant women in a tertiary centre in North-East Nigeria.
METHODOLOGY: This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study from April to October 2022. A total of 165 pregnant women were recruited for the study. A systematic random sampling was used to select the participants and a pre-tested questionnaire, the WHO instrument on women's health and domestic violence against women was used to assess the violence against pregnant women. Descriptive statistics were computed. A chi-square test was carried out to identify factors and associations with domestic violence with.
RESULTS: From the women surveyed, 40% of the pregnant women were victims of one form of domestic violence during pregnancy with psychological violence (40.90%) being the most common followed by physical violence (31.8%). Husbands are the commonest perpetrators (54.6%) of domestic violence in pregnancy while about 18.2% percent of the victims prefer not the discloses the perpetrators. The victims mostly seek help from the family (40.9%) while 24.2% of the victims keep it secret and do not seek any form of help. Women's unemployment and literacy status P value 0.66 and 0.61 respectively were not associated with domestic violence in pregnancy in the study population. About 21.5% of women in this study think that domestic violence in pregnancy can be excusable under certain circumstances.
CONCLUSION: A high proportion of women experience domestic violence during pregnancy in the study population. Husbands are the commonest perpetrators of domestic violence in pregnancy. Many of the victims are still not reporting the perpetrators or seeking help for domestic violence during pregnancy.