Factors affecting the levels of distress during pregnancy, sexual relationship power and intimate partner violence

Abstract

The study has been conducted to determine the factors affecting the levels of distress during pregnancy, sexual relationship power and intimate partner violence. This descriptive type study’s data have been collected from a maternity hospital providing service in the city of Konya in Turkey between the dates of November 2019-March 2020. A total of 578 pregnant women were included in this study. Personal Information Form, Spouse Violence Assessment Form, Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale and Sexuality Relationship Power Scale have been used as data collection tools. In the study, 16.6% of pregnant women have stated that they were sometimes exposed to emotional violence and 6.2% of them have expressed that they were exposed to physical violence for two-three times. Results showed that unplanned pregnancy was related to increased odds of distress experienced by pregnant women nearly six-fold [OR = 5.443, %95 CI (2.330-12.719)]. It was found that distress experienced by pregnant women whose spouses consumed alcohol was nearly two and a half-fold higher than those whose spouses did not consume alcohol, [OR = 2.482, %95 CI (1.269-4.855)]. According to the results of our study, it was determined that their distress levels decreased when women felt themselves as powerful on sexual relationship during their pregnancy.

Keywords:

• Intimate partner violence
• power
• pregnancy
• psychological distress
• sexual

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all pregnant women who agreed to participate in the study.

Declaration of interests statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors declared that they received no financial support for their research and/or authorship of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yasemin Erkal Aksoy

Yasemin Erkal Aksoy, PhD, She is a lecturer at the Department of Midwifery of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Selçuk University. She has published articles on issues such as pregnancy, postpartum, anxiety, prenatal attachment, and sexuality.

Bihter Akın

Bihter Akın, PhD, worked as a midwife for about 15 years. She is working as Assistant Professor in midwifery department of Health Science Faculty. There are published many articles and book chapters on birth, birth pain, prenatal education.

Sema Dereli Yılmaz

Sema Dereli Yılmaz, PhD, She is a professor at the Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health Sciences at Selçuk University. She has many published books and articles relating with pregnancy, birth, prenatal attachment, sexuality and urinary incontinence.