Domestic violence and its association with domains of reproductive health in women: A systematic review

Background and purpose: Violence is one of the main aspects of gender inequality that is a major barrier to achieving the goals of global reproductive health. It is directly associated with women's access to health care and health outcomes. In a systematic review, we aimed to investigate the articles on the relationship between intimate partner violence and women's reproductive health. Materials and methods: Electronic databases including, Scopus, ProQuest, PubMed, and Google Scholar were searched for articles published in English between 2010 and 2017. Results: After evaluation, 31 articles were selected. The lowest and highest prevalence of violence was associated with physical violence (2.8%) and psychological violence (75.9%), respectively. Moreover, violence was found to be associated with six domains of reproductive health including, not using contraceptive methods, abortion, genital tract diseases, poor pregnancy outcomes, and not using reproductive health services. Conclusion: Systematic review of studies investigated, showed a strong relationship between domestic violence and major aspects of reproductive health. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent domestic violence in order to promote the health of whole community.