Pandemic-related stress among women exposed to intimate partner violence in the perinatal period: Intervention effects and family relational experiences

• In Event: The COVID-19 pandemic, family stressors and the efficacy of brief family interventions

Abstract

Numerous aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic have heightened the risk for intimate partner violence (IPV) (Bradbury-Jones & Isham, 2020; Miller-Graff, 2020). IPV-exposed women may be especially vulnerable to pandemic-related stressors, which include changes to work/employment, childcare/schooling, relationships, finances/economics, and physical illnesses (Grasso, et al., 2020). Given that maternal experiences during pregnancy have significant and important consequences for the health and development of their offspring (Manzari, et al., 2019), understanding the effects of pandemic-related stressors on perinatal women has substantial implications for public health, including factors underlying the intergenerational transmission of risk from mothers to children.

The objectives of the current study were (1) to examine the pandemic-related changes and experiences of IPV-exposed women in the perinatal period, and (2) to assess the effects of previous intervention for IPV on pandemic-related stressors. These objectives were examined in a sample of (n=52) IPV-exposed women drawn from an ongoing randomized clinical trial of a brief intervention program designed to reduce IPV re-victimization, improve mental health, and support early parenting. All women had completed pre-treatment and post-treatment surveys prior to this data being collected in May 2020 and they had been randomized into either the treatment or contact-equivalent active control condition.

Of a list of pandemic-related stressors, 30.8% of women reported that financial concerns were their single greatest source of stress; 17.3% reported that their single greatest source of stress related to the pandemic was the impact on their child. Women reported an average of 5.5 pandemic-related stressors, with the most common being difficulty paying for things (80.8%). Pandemic-related stressors were significantly associated with women’s perceived stress (r=0.33, p=.01) and worry (r=0.40, p=.003). Women reported that the effects of the pandemic on their relationship with their older children were significantly more negative than the effects of the pandemic on their relationship with their newly delivered infants (t=3.81, p=.0004). Neither past IPV nor pandemic-related stressors were related to mother’s reports of changes in the quality of the relationships with their children during the pandemic. The intervention was, however, associated with a significant reduction in women’s exposure to physical IPV (IRR=0.42, p=.001), sexual IPV (IRR=0.45, p=.01), and injury (IRR=0.05, p=.03) as compared to the active control group. Lower post-treatment physical and sexual IPV rates were in turn associated with significantly lower levels of pandemic-related stressors (β=.38, p=.009; β=.20, p=.08, respectively), controlling for both baseline IPV and group assignment.

Study results indicate that a comprehensive assessment of pandemic-related stressors is critical for effectively capturing the range of experiences associated with the pandemic. Findings also reveal that the pandemic may be contributing to stress within the mother-child dynamic, as women are concerned about how the pandemic is affecting their children and they report increased strain with older children due to effects of the pandemic. Thus, services that target parenting and the parent-child relationship may ease distress associated with the pandemic.

Authors

• Laura Miller-Graff, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Kathryn H Howell, University of Memphis
  Non-Presenting Author