Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2018 Jul;10(2):63-74.
doi: 10.5249/jivr.v10i2.954. Epub 2018 Feb 27.

The prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in Iran and the world: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Jafar Bazyar, Hamid Safarpour, Salman Daliri  1 , Arezoo Karimi, Meysam Safi Keykaleh, Mohammad Bazyar
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

The prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in Iran and the world: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Jafar Bazyar et al. J Inj Violence Res. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Domestic violence during pregnancy is a public health crisis, because it affects both mother and fetus simultaneously, resulting in irreversible consequences for mothers and their newborns. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in the world and Iran as meta-analysis.

Methods: This study is a meta-analysis on the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in the world and Iran that was conductedon Persian and English published articles up to 2015. To this end, through searching the information by key words and their compounds at SID, Medlib, Irandoc, Google scholar, Pubmid, ISI, Iranmedex, Scopus and Magiran, all related articles were extracted independently by two trained researchers. The results of studies analyzed using the STATA and Spss 16 software.

Results: In the initial searching of 167 articles, 33 articles related to Iran, 40 articles related to other parts of the world and totally 73 articles met inclusion criteria for study. The prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy were estimated in the world 17% (CI 95%: 15% -18%) and in Iran 28% (CI 95%: 23%-32%). The prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in Iran is 11 percent more than the world.

Conclusions: According to the present meta-analysis results, the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in Iran is high. Given that sexual violence during pregnancy causes damage to the mother and infant, it is recommended that the relevant authorities with the implementation of intervention and educational programs reduce the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethical approval: Not required.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flowchart of articles entry and selection process for systematic review and meta-analysis.‎
Figure 2
Figure 2. Prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy and confidence level of 95% in studies in terms of the year and author based on a random effects model. The midpoint of each segment represents the prevalence rate and the segment length measures the confidence level of 95% per study. The diamond mark show that the prevalence rate for all the studies.
Figure 3-a
Figure 3-a. Meta-regression graph of the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in year.
Figure 3-b
Figure 3-b. Meta-regression graph of the prevalence of sexual violence during pregnancy in sample size.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Mousavi SM, Eshagian A. Wife abuse in Esfahan, Islamic republic of Iran. Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal. 2005;11(5):860–9. - PubMed
    1. Bakhtiari A, Omidbakhsh N. Backgrounds and effects of domestic violence against women referred to law-medicine center of Babol, Iran. Journal of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. 2004;7(4): 28-35. (Persian)
    1. Dolatian M, Gharachedaghy M, Ahmadi M, Shams J, Alavimajd H. Relationship between intimate partner abuse during pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes. J Ahvaz Univ Med Sci. 2009;13(4):261-9. (Persian)
    1. World Health Organization. Violence against women. WHO Fact Sheet 2001 Jun, http://www.WHO.int/mipfiles/2269/239-Violence against women for MIP.pdf, accessed 12 November 2004.
    1. Mohamadkhani P, Rezaee E, Mohamadi M, Azadmehr H. The prevalence of domestic violence among men and women. Journal of Social Wellbeing. 2005;5:215-23. (Persian)