Domestic violence and sexually transmitted diseases: The experience of prenatal care patients

Objectives, The authors analyzed interview responses of patients at a prena tal care clinic to explore whether women who had been victims of sexual and physical abuse were more likely than non-victimized women to have experien ced a sexually transmitted disease (STD), Methods. A consecutive sample of 774 prenatal patients of a large health de partment in North Carolina were interviewed concerning a variety of health issues, including violence and STDs, Logistic regression analysis was used to model the women's STD status as a function of their experiences of sexua l and physical abuse, controlling for several potentially confounding facto rs, Results, Thirty percent of the women reported having experienced at least o ne STD, with the most common infections being chlamydia and gonorrhea, Twen ty-eight percent of the women reported having been victims of abuse; 16% re ported physical abuse only, while 12% reported both physical and sexual abu se. The majority of violence was domestic in nature, perpetrated by the vic tims' husbands, boyfriends, male friends, and relatives, After controlling for confounding variables, the authors found that women who reported both p hysical and sexual abuse were significantly more likely to have experienced STDs than non-victims (odds ratio [OR] = 2.25; 95% confidence interval [CI ] 1.37, 3.69), The logistic regression analysis also showed a relationship of borderline statistical significance between non-sexual physical abuse an d STDs, Conclusions. Health care providers should routinely screen patients for bot h abuse and STDs, and they should assist identified women in accessing appr opriate health, social, and legal services.