Violência doméstica contra mulheres notificadas por Covid-19: psicometria de um instrumento de avaliação, conhecimentos sobre assistência jurídica e fatores associados

Abstract

Violence against women is a global phenomenon that violates human rights and affects public health. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), often observed in intimate relationships, encompasses psychological, sexual and physical aggression, with serious physical and mental repercussions for the victims. During the Covid-19 pandemic, measures such as social isolation, mobility restrictions and curfews increased the risk of IPV, as women spent more time at home with their partners. The fear of contracting the virus, prolonged stay with aggressors and changes in protection services have resulted in a decrease in both supply and demand for these services by women. This study investigates strategies to combat and refer cases of violence against women in emergency health contexts, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, specifically with regard to the psychometrics of an assessment tool, knowledge about legal aid and associated factors. The thesis consists of three academic articles that explore tools and challenges in dealing with violence against women during the pandemic. The first article analyzes the factor structure and psychometric properties of the WHO VAW instrument for critical circumstances. The second article examines these women's knowledge of legal aid services for women victims of domestic violence. It identified both a lack of information about the availability of legal resources, such as the Maria da Penha Law, and the difficulty of meeting the demand in extraordinary health contexts. The proposed solution is for legal aid services to be better prepared to deal with such contexts. The third article evaluates the influence of sociodemographic variables, legal literacy and knowledge about different types of violence. To this end, women notified in the epidemiological surveillance system of Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, with a suspicion or diagnosis of Covid-19, from May to December 31, 2020, were heard. The contributions of this study are important for establishing relationships with sociodemographic variables that reveal a broader and more nuanced context, which is necessary for designing new ways of informing, caring for and assisting women who are victims of violence. Taken together, these three studies shed light on the challenges and peculiarities involved in the phenomenon of domestic violence in adverse health contexts and propose important coping measures. In this sense, the first article proved the viability of the WHO VAW instrument for use in similar contexts in the future. The second article identified the need for better preparation of legalservices, while the third highlighted the importance of taking sociodemographic variables into account when formulating effective policies and strategies. Therefore, the different approaches proposed in the studies in this thesis point to significant ways of combating violence against women, even in the most challenging scenarios.