“He stepped on my belly” An exploration of Intimate Partner Violence Experience and Coping Strategies among Pregnant Women in Southwestern-Uganda

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) associated with pregnancy remains a challenge globally and in the Ugandan context. However, literature on IPV experiences, support seeking and coping strategies during pregnancy remains limited in Uganda. This study explored the pregnant women’s IPV experiences, support seeking and coping strategies in Southwestern Uganda. Pregnant women with IPV experience during the index pregnancy were purposively approached for in-depth interviews and saturation of data was reached at 25 respondents. Data was analyzed inductively using thematic analysis. Women voiced experiences of IPV that included partners: spending nights away from home without any communication, refusal of accompaniment for antenatal care contacts, uncomfortable sexual intercourse positions, forced sexual intercourse, being slapped, punched, and kicked, failure to pay bills like rent, children’s school fees, transport money to seek medical care and food. Women preferred sharing IPV experiences with their biological mothers to midwives or any other person and some kept it to themselves. The main support given by their support systems was encouraging the victims to try and maintain their marriage and keeping quiet when the partner starts quarreling. Women coped by confiding in their relatives, keeping silent, self-consolation, tolerance of the perpetrator since they financially depended on them, distracting bad thoughts through thinking about good things like friends, self-blame and praying to God. Pregnant women did not understand the role of midwives in IPV nor did the midwives’ inquire about the IPV experience during Antenatal care contacts. The findings of this study point to the need for the Health system to incorporate a user friendly IPV screening tool onto the ANC card to enhance routine IPV screening by midwives and recruit counselors and peer supporters to assist midwives in providing individualized psychological support. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The research work was funded by the First Mile community health program though authors did not receive any financial support for authorship and publication of this study. Funders were not involved in the design of the study, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing the manuscript. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Mbarara University Research Ethics Committee of Mbarara University of Science and Technology gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.