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. 2025 Aug;49(4):235-241.
doi: 10.1192/bjb.2024.43.

Factors associated with domestic violence in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic: Araraquara Cohort study

Leonardo Domingos Biagio  1 , Delanjathan Devakumar  2 , Leticia Falcão de Carvalho  1 , Natália Pinheiro de Castro  1 , Rossana Verónica Mendoza López  3 , Liania Alves Luzia  1 , Perla Pizzi Argentato  1 , Patrícia Helen Carvalho Rondó  1
Affiliations

Factors associated with domestic violence in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic: Araraquara Cohort study

Leonardo Domingos Biagio et al. BJPsych Bull. 2025 Aug.

Abstract

Aims and method: This cross-sectional study, carried out from 2021 to 2022, investigated the factors associated with domestic violence in 400 Brazilian pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Violence was assessed with the World Health Organization's Violence Against Women questionnaire and the Abuse Assessment Screen. Demographic, socioeconomic, obstetric, lifestyle and mental health data were collected.

Results: Violence at any time in their lives was reported by 52.2% of the women, and psychological violence was the most prevalent type (19.5%). Violence was associated with being single and mental health changes. Pregnant women exposed to any lifetime violence and psychological violence were, respectively, 4.67 and 5.93 times more likely to show mental health changes compared with women with no reported violence.

Clinical implications: Training health professionals involved in prenatal care in the early detection of single women and women with mental health changes could be important in preventing domestic violence.

Keywords: COVID-19; Domestic violence; mental health; pandemic; pregnant women.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

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