Amrapali Maitra

All Publications

• Love, Marriage, and Madness: A Cross-Cultural Dance. Current psychiatry reports Maitra, A. 2025; 28 (1): 1

  Abstract

  This reflective ethnography examines fracture and healing at the intersection of gender, culture, and embodiment in an NGO-run psychiatric rehabilitation center in Kolkata, India. Through the story of Soma Das-a survivor of domestic violence and psychosocial illness-the author explores how dance, labor, and relational presence function as integrative therapies within community psychiatry. At the Parinama shelter, "work as therapy" is a guiding principle, and group dance sessions restore rhythm, dignity, and belonging. Yet the piece interrogates the fine line between healing and discipline in institutional care, where productivity often stands in for wellness. Drawing on feminist psychiatry and cross-cultural frameworks, the author reframes recovery not as symptom remission but as embodied reintegration. By situating psychosocial rehabilitation alongside expressive movement practices, the essay illustrates how integrative care can emerge organically from local rituals of sociality. Healing, in this account, is relational and rhythmic-a choreography of survival that transcends diagnosis and gestures toward wholeness.

  View details for DOI 10.1007/s11920-025-01650-4

  View details for PubMedID 41273619

• Association between Intimate Partner Violence and Hospital-Based Healthcare Utilization: A Matched Cohort Analysis. Journal of general internal medicine Maitra, A., Schnipper, J. L., Yoon, C. S., Mueller, S. K. 2025

  Abstract

  Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health issue associated with increased healthcare utilization and worse outcomes. The majority of IPV research is conducted in emergency and outpatient populations.To investigate how IPV affects hospitalization rates and outcomes in adult patients.Matched cohort study. Five hospitals in an integrated, academic healthcare system in the Northeast.Patients with at least one hospitalization from October 1, 2016-October 1, 2019. IPV-exposed patients responded "yes" to a standardized abuse screen, received a referral to the hospital IPV program, or had a diagnostic billing code for IPV. Control patients responded "no" to the abuse screen.The primary outcome was hospitalization rate per patient-year. Secondary outcomes included mean length of stay (LOS), self-directed discharge, restraint use, and measures of healthcare utilization and in-hospital morbidity. Each exposed patient was matched to three controls on sex, location of abuse screening, and age within 5 years. We performed multivariable regression analysis and staged mediator analyses for mental health diagnoses, substance use diagnoses, and both.Our cohort consisted of 2095 IPV-exposed patients and 6285 matched controls (76% female, mean age 52). IPV-exposed patients had significantly higher hospitalization rates compared to unexposed patients (1.12 hospitalizations/year vs 0.74 hospitalizations/year, aIRR 1.51 [1.44, 1.58], p < 0.01). IPV-exposed patients also had significantly longer LOS; higher rates of three or more consults, restraint use, single-dose antipsychotic use, self-directed discharge, and higher pain scores; and lower rates of procedures. Staged mediation analysis revealed 9% mediation of primary outcome by mental health diagnoses, 15% by substance use diagnoses, and 19% by both.IPV exposure is associated with increased hospitalization rates and greater in-hospital utilization and morbidity. Our findings underscore the importance of IPV detection and intervention efforts in hospitals to improve care of this vulnerable population.

  View details for DOI 10.1007/s11606-025-09663-8

  View details for PubMedID 40627100

• The Belly's Word: Domestic Violence in a Bengali Clinic. Medical anthropology quarterly Maitra, A. 2023; 37 (2): 134-147

  Abstract

  Unspeakability is a dominant analytic lens in scholarship on gendered violence in India, but women can and do speak out. This article examines how Bengali women complain about domestic violence through peter katha, the belly's word. The capacious pet (belly) is the seat of tension, where abuse dwells in the body. At a clinic in Kolkata, India, women describe sensations of abdominal pain, pressure, and hunger to convey patterns and temporalities of violence. Yet complaints of belly pain go unacknowledged by local clinicians. Hygiene discourses frame poor women's bodies, not structural violence, as the problem. Peter katha is more than an idiom of distress: it is a genre of embodied complaint that illuminates violence as the accrual of harm and, in its dynamic and layered quality, moves beyond a binary of disclosure or concealment. Anthropologists may use peter katha to extend the conceptual vocabulary of gender and silence. [domestic violence, kinship, complaint, hygiene, belly, India].

  View details for DOI 10.1111/maq.12759

  View details for PubMedID 36989382

• A scoping review of intimate partner violence in hospitalized patients JOURNAL OF HOSPITAL MEDICINE Maitra, A., Schnipper, J. L., Bain, P. A., Mueller, S. K. 2023; 18 (8): 736-744

  Abstract

  Despite the high prevalence and significant health effects of intimate partner violence (IPV), little is known about its associations with hospitalization.To perform a scoping review of how IPV impacts hospitalization rates, characteristics, and outcomes in adult patients.A search of four databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and CINAHL) using a combination of terms including hospitalized patients and IPV revealed 1608 citations.One reviewer determined eligibility based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, which a second reviewer independently verified. Data were extracted and organized a posteriori into three categories based on research aim: (1) comparative studies of hospitalization risk associated with recent IPV exposure, (2) comparative studies of hospitalization outcomes by IPV exposure, and (3) descriptive studies of hospitalizations for IPV.Of the 12 included studies, 7 were comparative studies of hospitalization risk associated with IPV, 2 were comparative studies of hospitalization outcomes by IPV, and 3 were descriptive studies of hospitalizations for IPV. Nine out of 12 studies focused on specific patient populations. All but one study demonstrated that IPV was associated with increased risk of hospitalization and/or worse hospitalization outcomes. Six of the seven comparative studies showed a positive association between recent IPV and hospitalization risk.This review suggests that IPV exposure increases the risk of hospitalization and/or worsens inpatient outcomes in specific patient populations. Additional work is needed to characterize hospitalization rates and outcomes for persons who have experienced IPV in a broader, nontrauma population.

  View details for DOI 10.1002/jhm.13094

  View details for Web of Science ID 000961591200001

  View details for PubMedID 36999751

• RARE NEUROLOGIC PRESENTATION OF HEMOLYTIC UREMIC SYNDROME: IMPLICATIONS OF ECULIZUMAB THERAPY Venkataramani, R., Maitra, A., Hennessey, E., Rizvi, A. LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS. 2018: 258

  View details for DOI 10.1097/01.ccm.0000528564.25477.5c

  View details for Web of Science ID 000436794300510