Interventions for intimate partner violence during the perinatal period: A scoping review: A systematic review

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prevalent global health problem. IPV that occurs before pregnancy often continues during the perinatal period, resulting in ongoing violence and many adverse maternal, obstetrical, and neonatal outcomes.

This scoping review is designed to broadly capture all potential interventions for perinatal IPV and describe their core components and measured outcomes.

We conducted a search for empirical studies describing IPV interventions in the perinatal population in June 2022. The search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, Applied Social Sciences Index & Abstracts, ClinicalTrials.gov and MedRxiv. Hand searching of references from select articles was also performed.

Included studies described an intervention for those experiencing IPV during the perinatal period, including 12 months before pregnancy, while pregnant or in the 12 months post-partum. The search encompassed January 2000 to June 2022 and only peer-reviewed studies written in either English or French were included. Included interventions focused on the survivor exposed to IPV, rather than healthcare professionals administering the intervention. Interventions designed to reduce IPV revictimization or any adverse maternal, obstetrical, or neonatal health outcomes as well as social outcomes related to IPV victimization were included.

We used standard methodological procedures expected by The Campbell Collaboration.

In total, 10,079 titles and abstracts were screened and 226 proceeded to full text screening. A total of 67 studies included perinatal IPV interventions and were included in the final sample. These studies included a total of 27,327 participants. Included studies originated from 19 countries, and the majority were randomized controlled trials (n = 43). Most studies were of moderate or low quality. Interventions included home visitation, educational modules, counseling, and cash transfer programs and occurred primarily in community obstetrician and gynecologist clinics, hospitals, or in participants' homes. Most interventions focused on reducing revictimization of IPV (n = 38), improving survivor knowledge or acceptance of violence, knowledge of community resources, and actions to reduce violence (n = 28), and improving maternal mental health outcomes (n = 26). Few studies evaluated the effect of perinatal IPV interventions on obstetrical, neonatal or child health outcomes.

The majority of intervention studies for perinatal IPV focus on reducing revictimization and improving mental health outcomes, very few included obstetrical, neonatal, and other physical health outcomes. Future interventions should place a larger emphasis on targeting maternal and neonatal outcomes to have the largest possible impact on the lives and families of IPV survivors and their infants.