Factors affecting the levels of distress during pregnancy, sexual relationship power and intimate partner violence

The study has been conducted to determine the factors affecting the levels of distress during pregnancy, sexual relationship power and intimate partner violence. This descriptive type study’s data have been collected from a maternity hospital providing service in the city of Konya in Turkey between the dates of November 2019-March 2020. A total of 578 pregnant women were included in this study. Personal Information Form, Spouse Violence Assessment Form, Tilburg Pregnancy Distress Scale and Sexuality Relationship Power Scale have been used as data collection tools. In the study, 16.6% of pregnant women have stated that they were sometimes exposed to emotional violence and 6.2% of them have expressed that they were exposed to physical violence for two-three times. Results showed that unplanned pregnancy was related to increased odds of distress experienced by pregnant women nearly six-fold [OR = 5.443, %95 CI (2.330-12.719)]. It was found that distress experienced by pregnant women whose spouses consumed alcohol was nearly two and a half-fold higher than those whose spouses did not consume alcohol, [OR = 2.482, %95 CI (1.269-4.855)]. According to the results of our study, it was determined that their distress levels decreased when women felt themselves as powerful on sexual relationship during their pregnancy.