Healthcare Professionals’ Perceptions and Concerns towards Domestic Violence during Pregnancy in Southern Italy

Abstract

Background: Literature on pregnancy highlighted a large number of women abused by their partners, especially among low-income teenagers attending hospital for pregnancy check-ups. Pregnancy represents a key moment for diagnosing domestic violence. Method: This study explores health professionals’ perceptions and concerns about domestic violence against women in services dealing with pregnant women. The twenty-four interviewees were from an Obstetrical-Gynecological walk-in Clinic in the south of Italy. The textual data has been complementarily analyzed by means of two different procedures: Symbolic-structural semiotic analysis and Thematic content analysis. Results: What emerges is that the interviewees of the clinic do not regard the issue of domestic violence as a matter of direct interest for the health service. The clinic is seen as a place for urgent contact, but one where there is not enough time to dedicate to this kind of patient, nor an adequate space to care for and listen to them. Obstetricians and health personnel expressed a negative attitude when it comes to including questions regarding violence and abuse in pre-natal reports. Training for health and social professionals and the empowering of institutional support and networking practices are needed to increase awareness of the phenomenon among the gynecological personnel.

Minority Stress and Mental Health in Italian Bisexual People

“…Furthermore, women and younger participants resulted in being higher in anticipated binegativity than men and older participants. Higher levels of expectation of rejection in women may be explained through the evidence that women who are not conforming to societal heteronormative expectations are less stigmatized than male counterparts (Habarth 2015); as a result, the lesser visibility of women living in a sexist and heteronormative society, such as the Italian one (Di Napoli et al 2019;Lingiardi et al 2012;Pacilli et al 2011;Procentese et al 2019a;Di Napoli et al 2019;Lingiardi et al 2012;Pacilli et al 2011;Procentese et al 2019b), may lead them to expect that, once their bisexual identity becomes visible, they may be rejected, heightened vigilance to social rejection. Instead, regarding the higher levels of anticipated binegativity in younger participants, it is plausible to hypothesize that older bisexual individuals have had more time to integrate their identity within the self-concept, developing competencies that allow them to buffer the negative effects of stigma on health (Van Wagenen et al 2013).…”

Downside: The Perpetrator of Violence in the Representations of Social and Health Professionals

“…Other risk factors are marital separation or often pregnancy. The latter could represent the starting or increasing moment of domestic violence, as confirmed by literature [ 5 , 66 , 67 , 68 ]. A possible explanation for this common phenomenon would concern the concurrence of the man’s need to receive exclusive love from the woman and his excessive jealousy towards the child she carries in her womb and the weakness and fragility of the pregnant woman.…”

Design and Validation of the PercOV-S Questionnaire for Measuring Perceived Obstetric Violence in Nursing, Midwifery and Medical Students

“…Although identification is a beginning, one must also be aware that students also learn how to justify this learned violence, lack of respect, and abuse in delivery and maternity wards [24]. This presents a broad field for future lines of research in this area, with a fundamental role being played by the development of strategies and learning plans related to any violence against women, for example, domestic violence during pregnancy [42].…”