Intimate Partner Violence during Index pregnancy and its correlates in Ethiopia, Evidence from Performance, and Monitoring for Action (PMA) 2021 Cohort Two Baseline Survey

Abstract Introduction: Current intimate partner violence (IPV) in Ethiopia is considerably high. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of IPV among pregnant women during their index pregnancy and identify its correlates using Performance Monitoring for action (PMA) cohort 2 baseline data. Documenting the magnitude of IPV during the index pregnancy and identifying factors affecting it contributes its share for the ministry and other relevant partners in tracking progress towards eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030. Methods: This study used PMA cohort 2 baseline data which enrolled and collected data from currently pregnant women. Frequency was computed to describe the study participant’s characteristics, and chi-square statistics was used to assess cell sample size adequacy. Multilevel binary logistics regression was employed to identify correlates of IPV. Results were presented in the form percentages and odds ratio with 95% Confidence Intervals. Candidate variables were selected using p-value of 0.25. Statistical significance was declared at p-value of 0.05. Results: One in six 16.7% (14.81%, 18.76%) pregnant women reported experiencing at least one form of physical and/or sexual IPV during their index pregnancy. The prevalence of encountering at least one form of sexual violence was 12.53% (10.91%, 14.35%) while 7% (5.5%, 8.3%) of them experienced at least one form physical intimate partner violence during their index pregnancy. After controlling confounders, women perceived risk about contraceptive use, increased parity and family size were the fixed effects found to increase the odds of IPV while being in the third trimester of gestation by enrollment was another fixed effect variable which contributed for the lower odds of experiencing IPV during the index pregnancy. Conclusions and recommendations: The overall burden of IPV reported was high, with nearly double the percentage of women experiencing sexual violence during the index pregnancy compared to physical IPV. More work needs to be done to achieve zero tolerance against any form of violence among women and girls in general and among pregnant women in particular. Efforts targeted in improving women perception on issue related with their contraceptive use, counseling women on how to prevent IPV during their antenatal care (ANC) visit along with advising the use of inter pregnancy contraception and empowering them to decide on their family fertility desire are hoped to mitigate such considerably high odds of IPV among pregnant women.