Willis Malachi, Tanton Clare, Conolly Anne, Baxter Andrew J, Pérez Raquel Bosó, Riddell Julie, Dema Emily, Copas Andrew J, Macdowall Wendy, Bonell Chris, Mercer Catherine H, Sonnenberg Pam, Field Nigel, Mitchell Kirstin R
MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Clarice Pears Building, 90 Byres Road, Glasgow, G12 8TB UK.
Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, WC1H 9SH UK.
J Fam Violence. 2025;40(4):649-661. doi: 10.1007/s10896-023-00665-w. Epub 2023 Nov 24.
The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions introduced personal and relationship stressors that potentially increased the risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) for some. We estimated the population prevalence and correlates of fearing a partner in the first year of the pandemic in Britain.
We used data from Natsal-COVID Wave 2-a web-panel survey undertaken one year after the initial British lockdown from 23 March 2020. Quotas and weighting were used to achieve a quasi-representative sample of the general population. Participants were asked about fearing a partner, which is a simple and valid screening tool to identify IPV experiences.
In our sample (unweighted = 6302, aged 18-59), 9.0% of women and 8.7% of men reported fearing a partner in the first year of the pandemic. Women (73.3%) were more likely than men (49.9%) to indicate that fearing a partner made them feel anxious or depressed; men were more likely to report increased substance use (30.8% vs. 18.4%) and affected work/studies (30.0% vs. 20.0%). For both women and men, fearing a partner during the first year of the pandemic was associated with established health and wellbeing outcomes like anxiety/depression, alcohol use, accessing sexual/reproductive health services, and relationship dissolution as well as feeling that the "pandemic made things worse" across various life domains.
Population-level estimates of IPV during the COVID-19 pandemic highlight harmful experiences that occurred alongside other wide-ranging hardships, and the associations presented identify key populations with potential ongoing need. We make recommendations for primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of IPV.
新冠疫情及封锁限制带来了个人和人际关系方面的压力源，这可能增加了部分人遭受亲密伴侣暴力（IPV）的风险。我们估计了英国疫情第一年中害怕伴侣的人群患病率及其相关因素。
我们使用了来自全国性态度和生活方式调查-新冠疫情第二轮（Natsal-COVID Wave 2）的数据，这是一项在2020年3月23日英国首次封锁一年后进行的网络面板调查。采用配额和加权方法以获得具有准代表性的一般人群样本。参与者被问及是否害怕伴侣，这是一种识别亲密伴侣暴力经历的简单且有效的筛查工具。
在我们的样本中（未加权 = 6302人，年龄在18 - 59岁之间），9.0%的女性和8.7%的男性报告在疫情的第一年害怕伴侣。女性（73.3%）比男性（49.9%）更有可能表示害怕伴侣会让她们感到焦虑或抑郁；男性更有可能报告物质使用增加（30.8%对18.4%）以及工作/学习受到影响（30.0%对20.0%）。对于女性和男性而言，在疫情第一年害怕伴侣都与既定的健康和幸福结果相关，如焦虑/抑郁、饮酒、使用性/生殖健康服务、关系破裂，以及感觉“疫情使各生活领域的情况更糟”。
新冠疫情期间亲密伴侣暴力的人群层面估计突出了与其他广泛困难同时发生的有害经历，所呈现的关联确定了可能持续有需求的关键人群。我们针对亲密伴侣暴力的一级、二级和三级预防提出了建议。
