Intimate partner violence against women through the Woman Abuse Screening Tool (WAST): pre- and post-COVID-19...

To analyse the temporal trend of the intimate partner violence (IPV) against women, based on the Woman Abuse Screening Tool (WAST) short form within the public health surveillance system, in the pre-and post-COVID-19 periods.

Cross-sectional.

The source of information was the Non-communicable Disease Risk-Factor Surveillance System (18-64 years) of the community of Madrid. The WAST short form includes two questions. WAST positive scoring (WAST+) was considered when woman reported that she had experienced some/a lot of tension in the couple's relationships and some/great difficulty in working out arguments. WAST+ was considered a proxy for IPV. Prevalence rates were obtained for years prior to the COVID-19 (2018, 2019), pandemic years (2020, 2021, 2022), and beyond (2023). Also, we analysed some health indicators included depression (according PHQ-8 questionnaire), self-perceived health, and alcohol and tobacco use with WAST+. Prevalence rates were calculated with 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI) and crude and adjusted for year of study and socioeconomic variables prevalence ratios (aPR) were estimated using Poisson regression models.

Among 4791 women surveyed, the prevalence of WAST+ was 13.5 % (95 % CI: 12.5-14.5), with an annual range from 10.7 % (95 % CI: 8.7-13.0) to 16.7 % (95 % CI: 14.2-19.4). No differences were found between the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. WAST+ was associated with depression (aPR: 2.54; 95 % CI: 2.16-2.98), self-perceived health as bad or very bad (aPR: 1.94; 95 % CI: 1.39-2.71), high-risk alcohol consumption (aPR: 1.54; 95 % CI: 1.10-2.17) and tobacco consumption (aPR: 1.44; 95 % CI: 1.23-1.68).

No changes in IPV were identified in the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. The association of a positive WAST score with indicators of poor health reinforces its usefulness for monitoring IPV in population-based public health surveillance surveys.