Summary

Impact of COVID-19 on women victims of gender-based violence in hospital emergency departments

Yolanda Jiménez-Cortés¹, Francisco Rivas-Ruiz^2,3, José Carlos Canca-Sánchez^4,5, Marta Aranda-Gallardo^1-5, Carmen Agüera-Urbano¹, Margarita Enríquez de Luna-Rodríguez¹

Affiliation of the authors

¹Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol de Marbella, Servicio Andaluz de Salud, Marbella, Málaga, Spain. ²Unidad de Investigación e Innovación, Hospital Universitario Costa del Sol, Marbella, Málaga, Spain. ³Investigador RICAPPS (Red de Investigación en Cronicidad, Atención Primaria y Prevención y Promoción de la Salud, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Spain). ⁴Departamento de Enfermería, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain. ⁵Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (IBIMA), Spain.

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Jiménez-Cortés Y, Rivas-Ruiz F, Canca-Sánchez JC, Aranda-Gallardo M, Agüera-Urbano C, Enríquez de Luna-Rodríguez M. Impact of COVID-19 on women victims of gender-based violence in hospital emergency departments. Rev Esp Urg Emerg. 2025;4:227–32

Summary

INTRODUCTION. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented health, economic, and social crisis, directly impacting gender-based violence (GBV) in all countries. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the pandemic’s impact on the care of women victims of GBV in a hospital emergency department. The secondary endpoint was to describe the profile of these women.
MATERIAL AND METHODS. We conducted a retrospective cohort study in a hospital emergency department over 3 periods of time: Pre-COVID (March 1st, 2019 through February 29th, 2020), COVID (March 1st, 2020 through February 28th, 2021), and Post- Pandemic (March 1st, 2021 through February 28th, 2022). Records of women older than 14 years with suspected or confirmed GBV were included. We conducted a descriptive analysis using measures of central tendency and dispersion for quantitative variables and frequency distributions for qualitative variables.
RESULTS. We identified a total of 196 women, with a mean age of 38.6 years; 59.2% were foreign nationals. The incidence rate per 10,000 inhabitants was 3.0 (95% CI, 2.3-3.8) in the pre-COVID period, 1.6 (95% CI, 1.1-2.2) during the COVID period, and increased to 3.7 (95% CI, 3.0-4.6) in the post-pandemic period. Of these women, 66.3% reported previous assaults. In 96.9% of cases, there was no restraining order, and 92.9% experienced physical assault. Across the periods, the rates of suicidal ideation were 4.5% (Pre- COVID), 5.1% (COVID), and 5.6% (post-pandemic).
CONCLUSIONS. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the difficulties faced by both women and health care professionals in providing care and early detection of GBV risk indicators in hospital emergency departments.