Prevalence & Correlates of Intimate Partner Violence During COVID-19: A Rapid Review.

"Declarations Conflict of interestThe authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. Conflict of interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose."

"Funding Support for this project came from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Canada Research Chairs program (#950–232347)."

"The rapid review protocol adhering to the preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., ) was submitted for registration with PROSPERO [CRD42020213143] on October 27, 2020. The “strategy for data synthesis” portion of the protocol was updated and resubmitted, and the protocol was accepted for registration on November 23rd, 2020. Rapid reviews offer unique benefits not seen in other types of reviews. Rapid reviews are particularly beneficial in the context of public health emergencies, such as COVID-19, when policy makers require timely evidence for health system decision making (Tricco et al., ). By expediting the review process, appropriate policies and resources can be established to support survivors of IPV throughout the remainder of the pandemic. Furthermore, by pre-registering and adhering to evidence-based scientific standards, the quality of the review can be maintained (Tricco et al., ). One limitation of this method is that grey literature was not examined. The search was restricted to papers published in English, with data collection taking place during the first 6 months of the pandemic (i.e., before September 11th, 2020, six months after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic), and the raw dataset of studies was created on October 30, 2020. This period was selected because a global lockdown occurred at this point of the pandemic, and nearly every country in the world implemented some degree of domestic lockdown (Onyeaka et al., ). Additionally, the early months of the pandemic consisted of great economic uncertainty and increased financial stress at the individual level, as well as increased fear and decreased access to education (Onyeaka et al., ). Given this is a global review, selecting an early timeframe when most countries in the world were locking down allows us to draw more concrete conclusions across geographic regions. Data needed to be included regarding the prevalence of IPV and/or the factors contributing to IPV during the COVID-19 pandemic. PsycINFO, MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and the Cochrane COVID-19 Study registry were searched. The article title, abstract, and keyword fields were examined using the following search string: ((“COVID-19” OR Coronavirus OR “SARS-CoV-2”) AND (“family violence” OR “domestic violence” OR “domestic abuse” OR “domestic conflict" OR "marital conflict" OR "intimate partner violence”)). Quantitative, empirical study designs (i.e., randomized controlled trials, non-randomized control trials, interrupted time-series studies), qualitative interview studies, analytical observational studies (i.e., retrospective cohort studies, case–control studies, and cross-sectional analysis), and mixed methods studies were included. Reviews, as well as comments, editorials, and letters to the editor were excluded."