IPV and COVID-19: A systematic review of the literature

Purpose: Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is an urgent matter, and a global concern for several countries across the world highlighted high numbers and percentages also before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Further, international states and organizations have claimed an increase in IPV numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising awareness of the potential causes and providing urgent recommendations and guidelines to follow for the containment and possible interventions. Based on these priorities, this review aims to explore and analyze the existing scientific literature on the association and consequences of COVID-19 on Domestic Violence and to sum up the strategies and recommendations for clinicians and health care workers. Methods: The electronic databases of PubMed, Scopus and Science of Direct were searched. Papers published between 2019 and 2020, written in English and having as main focus the domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, were included. Results: At the final stage, 60 articles were included and analyzed. Results pointed three pre-determined categories: the course, the dynamics, the recommendations and an adjunctive category DV and disasters. Conclusions: Since COVID-19 is responsible for a spike in DV cases, it is essential to implement specific and shared assessment strategies and targeted interventions in order to prevent the adverse outcomes of IPV.