Prevalence of intimate partner and family violence among women attending infertility clinic and relationship between violence and quality of life

This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of intimate partner and family violence among women attending an infertility clinic and the relationship between violence and quality of life (QoL). The research sample consisted of 125 women who received infertility treatment between June and September 2019 at Gaziantep University Hospital, Gynaecology Outpatient. The data of the study were collected using the 'Questionnaire form', 'Infertile Women's Exposure to Violence Determination Scale (IWEVDS), 'The Fertility Quality of Life Questionnaire (FertiQoL)'. After the diagnosis of infertility, 76.8% of the women were exposed to violence. 62.5% of the women stated that the perpetrator of the violence was a relative and 17.7% of them were spouses. The average scores of IWEVDS was 50.2 +/- 15.2 and FertiQoL was 109.46 +/- 19.89. A high negative correlation was found between IWEVDS score and QoL of women exposed to violence. As the exposure to violence increases, the QoL of women decreases.Impact Statement What is already known on this subject? Infertility is a psychological crisis of life which is stressful for both partners, economically expensive, and involves complex procedures in the treatment process. Especially in patriarchal societies, women are seen as responsible for infertility. Another negative effect of infertility on quality of life (QoL) is due to the social pressure it creates. Such problems that affect the general health levels are: not enjoying life, unhappiness, loss of expectation and depression with low QoL. What do the results of this study add? In this study, a high negative correlation was found between IWEVDS score and QoL of women exposed to violence. This shows that as the exposure to violence increases, the QoL of infertile women decreases. It was found that the women who were exposed to domestic violence, they have less infertility treatment tolerance. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? The problem of infertility is a health problem with medical, psychiatric, social, cultural, ethical, economic and religious dimensions affecting couples and society. The aim of nursing care in the process of infertility treatment is to evaluate the couples with a bio-psychosocial approach and to offer a double-specific approach after evaluating the couple's needs.