Domestic Violence and Birth Control Sabotage: A Report From The Teen Parent Project

Review
Posted by: SallyLouise on Tue, 13 May 08 21:32:11 +0000

This is an important piece of research as it is the first time the association between domestic violence and birth control sabotage has been made.

The study is well planned. The use of mixed methods is interesting with the qualitative element supporting and highlighting the quantitative data well, bringing the statistics to life with some shocking examples of how domestic violence is used to influence birth control and access to education.

It is unfortunate that the size of the qualitative sample is not larger (16) as the total number of participants who experience some form of domestic violence is high (261).

If time and finance had been available this would have been an interesting area to develop, not only for this study but to aid future research in this area.

Qualitative work could also have been used to develop the closed questions relating to levels of domestic violence.

By having only a few options this area may be underrepresented in the survey.

Bias may also have been brought into the study during the sampling, and may be reflected in the high average age of the sample and the high level of support they receive from their partners.

By sampling only at busy times the study may have excluded certain groups of women.

There is also a possibility that women who experience more domestic violence do not attend clinics at all, and so these women are not included in the study.

It would also be interesting to know if the Conflict Tactic Scale has been validated, as this is not made clear in the study.

It is also concerning from a reliability and validity perspective that there were two versions of the fieldwork used, although this is acknowledged as a concern by the authors.

There is also some confusion when looking at the level of domestic violence and the age of the partner.

It appears that there is no difference between the age difference of the partner and participant and the level of domestic violence, however there is a higher level of domestic violence when participants have older boyfriends.

These two findings don't fit together in a cohesive manner and would need further explanation.

Even though a control sample has been included in the study this has not been referred to in the results.

It is not made clear whether the questions asked if the partner influenced the participants in taking birth control, it only says whether they told them to stop.

We can not infer from this that they did.

This is, however, a good piece of research well backed by statistical significance.

It is a good platform to build further research.

It also highlights an area that education planners and policy makers need to address.

An interesting area for the future would be WHY male partners feel they should prevent women from taking birth control or limiting their access to education.