Prevalence of Gender-Based Violence and pregnancy outcome in Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic in Selected Primary Health Care Centres in Abuja FCT, Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of Gender-based violence and pregnancy outcomes in pregnant women attending antenatal care clinics in two selected primary health care centres at Abuja FCT, Nigeria. Methodology: The descriptive and analytical cross-sectional research design and a convenience sampling method were used. A pretested semi-structured questionnaire with a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.77 was administered with the interviewer-administered data collection technique to collect data. The study population were pregnant women who attended antenatal clinic at the Primary Health Care Centres at Karu and Jikwoyi in Abuja-FCT; the sample size was 384 pregnant women between the ages of 15-44 years. Raw data generated from the completed questionnaire was analysed for simple frequency, percentage, and Chi-square analysis using the SPSS version 16. Results: Prevalence of GBV among the participants was 59.6%, 99.4% accounted for emotional abuse, physical abuse at 28.5%, and sexual abuse at 13.6%. The findings indicate that GBV single cases of emotional abuse was 66.7%, physical abuse was 0.4%, combined cases of emotional and physical violence were 19.3%, emotional combined with sexual was 4.8%, while the case of multiple violence of emotional, physical and sexual was 8.8%. Overall, husbands were the perpetrators of the abuse and accounted for emotional abuse at 96.9%, physical at 89.2%, and sexual abuse at 100.0%. Conclusion: The effect of physical abuse on pregnant outcome among pregnant women in their previous pregnancies was that 27.6% had a miscarriage, while 6.9% had preterm delivery.