ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound societal and economic effects. Concerns were raised that domestic violence might increase because of the enacted infection control measures. Previous findings on this issue have been contradictory. Since existing studies mainly rely on official reports, administrative data, helpline calls, or retrospective measures, their findings are likely to prove unreliable. Few population-based surveys include pre-pandemic data, limiting their ability to test for causality regarding increasing violence. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare findings from population-representative surveys on the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) and violence against children (VAC) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the data of N = 3,639 individuals living with a romantic partner and N = 1,313 parents living with at least one of their children from three German representative population surveys, we estimated average marginal effects for the temporal trends (i.e., pre vs. post infection control measures) of domestic violence separately for males and females. To minimize bias across survey waves, inverse probability weighting was used. Results show no statistically significant increase in either physical or psychological forms of IPV or VAC as a result of the implementation of COVID measures. On the contrary, the 1-year prevalence was decreasing for certain forms of violence. Our findings suggest that the assessment of the consequences of infection control measures needs an empirical basis. Further research should be conducted using high-quality data sources. Therefore, the present study should be considered a stepping stone for ongoing research efforts to examine the consequences of pandemic-related infection control measures on the general population.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Domestic Violence , Intimate Partner Violence , Male , Female , Child , Humans , Pandemics , COVID-19/epidemiology , Retrospective Studies , Intimate Partner Violence/psychology , PrevalenceABSTRACT
The present article assesses the effects of shattered social identity and moral injuries experienced by health care professionals (HCPs) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Professional expertise and emotional-cognitive demands as key aspects of HCPs' social identity are introduced, and the effects of moral injuries-in terms of violation of medical-ethical and social-ethical norms-on the mental health of HCPs are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).