Domestic violence against pregnant women

Objective: To characterize domestic violence in pregnancy. Method: Cross-sectional, exploratory and analytical study of domestic violence with 385 women who attended a public maternity. The Chi-square test of Pearson and Fisher exact test were used to verify associations and considering significant results p<0.05. Data of the sociodemographic characteristics of women, partners and family members and items of Abuse Assessment Screen-AAS were collected. Results: Domestic violence compromised 36.9% of women at some point in life and 34.6% during pregnancy. Prevalence rates were due to psychological (97.1%), physical (48.7%) and sexual (4.9%) violence and the partner was the main aggressor. The following variables were significantly associated with domestic violence: protestant religion (p=0.0022), lack of planning of pregnancy (p=0.0196), low family income (p=0.0215) and partner drinking habit (p=0,0002). Conclusion: Domestic violence should be systematically investigated during pregnancy, with special attention to protestant pregnant women, women who did not plan their pregnancy and women whose partners are alcoholics.