You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Reproductive and sexual health of Australian adolescents exposed to family and domestic violence
  1. Carol Orr1,
  2. Erin Kelty1,
  3. Melissa O'Donnell2,
  4. Colleen M Fisher1,
  5. Rebecca Glauert1,
  6. David B Preen1
  1. 1 School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  2. 2 The Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Carol Orr, School of Population and Global Health, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia; carol.orr{at}uwa.edu.au

Abstract

Background There is a dearth of research investigating sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in children exposed to family and domestic violence (FDV). Further, there is no research on terminations of pregnancy in children exposed to FDV.

Methods This retrospective cohort study used linked administrative data from Western Australia to investigate whether exposure to FDV is associated with a risk of hospitalisations for STIs and terminations of pregnancy in adolescents. This study involved children born from 1987 to 2010 whose mother was a victim of FDV. Identification of family and domestic violence was from two sources: police and hospital records. This approach provided an exposed cohort of 16 356 and a non-exposed cohort of 41 996. Dependant variables were hospitalisations for pregnancy terminations and STIs in children aged from 13 up to 18 years of age. The primary explanatory variable was exposure to FDV. Multivariable Cox regression was used to investigate the association of FDV exposure and the outcomes.

Results Following adjustment for sociodemographic and clinical factors, children exposed to FDV had an increased risk of hospitalisations for STIs (HR 1.49, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.92) and terminations of pregnancy (HR 1.34, 95% CI 1.09 to 1.63) as an adolescent than non-exposed peers.

Conclusion Children exposed to FDV are at an increased risk of hospitalisation for STI and termination of pregnancy as an adolescent. Effective interventions are needed to support children exposed to FDV.

  • sexual health
  • sexually transmitted diseases
  • abortion, therapeutic
  • adolescent

Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the terms of the ethics approval granted by the Department of Health Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee and data disclosure policies of the Data Providers. The datasets may be available from the Western Australia Data Linkage Branch at dataservices@health.wa.gov.au and subject to the approval from the Department of Health Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee and relevant custodians.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2022-201684

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the terms of the ethics approval granted by the Department of Health Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee and data disclosure policies of the Data Providers. The datasets may be available from the Western Australia Data Linkage Branch at dataservices@health.wa.gov.au and subject to the approval from the Department of Health Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee and relevant custodians.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors CO conceptualised the study. Analysis was carried out by CO. The manuscript was drafted by CO. All authors contributed to the review and editing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. CO is responsible for the overall content as guarantor.

    • Funding Carol Orr was supported by a Stan Perron Charitable Foundation Grant. Carol Orr, Rebecca Glauert and David Preen were supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project Grant #LP190100968.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.