ABSTRACT
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.
ABSTRACT
Access to quality emergency obstetric and newborn care (EmONC); having a skilled attendant at birth (SBA); adequate antenatal care; and efficient referral systems are considered the most effective interventions in preventing stillbirths. We determined the influence of travel time from mother's area of residence to a tertiary health facility where women sought care on the likelihood of delivering a stillbirth. We carried out a prospective matched case-control study between 1st January 2019 and 31st December 2019 at the Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe (FTHG), Nigeria. All women who experienced a stillbirth after hospital admission during the study period were included as cases while controls were consecutive age-matched (ratio 1:1) women who experienced a live birth. We modelled travel time to health facilities. To determine how travel time to the nearest health facility and the FTHG were predictive of the likelihood of stillbirths, we fitted a conditional logistic regression model. A total of 318 women, including 159 who had stillborn babies (cases) and 159 age-matched women who had live births (controls) were included. We did not observe any significant difference in the mean travel time to the nearest government health facility for women who had experienced a stillbirth compared to those who had a live birth [9.3 mins (SD 7.3, 11.2) vs 6.9 mins (SD 5.1, 8.7) respectively, p = 0.077]. However, women who experienced a stillbirth had twice the mean travel time of women who had a live birth (26.3 vs 14.5 mins) when measured from their area of residence to the FTHG where deliveries occurred. Women who lived farther than 60 minutes were 12 times more likely of having a stillborn [OR = 12 (1.8, 24.3), p = 0.011] compared to those who lived within 15 minutes travel time to the FTHG. We have shown for the first time, the influence of travel time to a major tertiary referral health facility on the occurrence of stillbirths in an urban city in, northeast Nigeria.
