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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2018

Open Access 01-12-2018 | Research article

Factors associated with recent intimate partner violence experience amongst currently married women in Afghanistan and health impacts of IPV: a cross sectional study

Authors: Andrew Gibbs, Julienne Corboz, Rachel Jewkes

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2018

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Abstract

Background

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is exceedingly common in conflict and post-conflict settings. We first seek to describe factors associated with past 12 month IPV amongst currently married women in Afghanistan, focused on the factors typically assumed to drive IPV. Second, to describe whether IPV is independently associated with a range of health outcomes.

Methods

Cross-sectional analysis of currently married Afghan women, comprising the baseline study of a trial to prevent IPV. We use multinomial regression, reporting adjusted relative-risk ratios to model factors associated with the different forms of IPV, comparing no IPV, emotional IPV only, and physical IPV and emotional IPV. Second we assessed whether experience of emotional IPV, and physical IPV, were independently associated with health outcomes, reporting adjusted ß coefficients and adjusted odds ratios as appropriate.

Results

Nine hundred thirty five currently married women were recruited, 11.8% experienced only emotional IPV and 23.1% experienced physical and emotional IPV. Emotional IPV only was associated with attending a women’s group, greater food insecurity, her husband having more than one wife, experiencing other forms of family violence, and more inequitable community gender norms. Experiencing both physical IPV and emotional IPV was associated with attending a women’s group, more childhood trauma, husband cruelty, her husband having more than one wife, experiencing other forms of family violence, more inequitable community gender norms, and greater reported disability. Emotional IPV and physical IPV were independently associated with worse health outcomes.

Conclusion

IPV remains common in Afghanistan. Economic interventions for women alone are unlikely to prevent IPV and potentially may increase IPV. Economic interventions need to also work with husbands and families, and work to transform community level gender norms.

Trial registration

NCT03236948. Registered 28 July 2017, retrospectively registered.
Footnotes
1
Madrasas (Islamic religious teaching centres) have a long history in Afghanistan and have traditionally focused on teaching the reading of the Koran and Islamic principles and morals, although other subjects such as literacy, numeracy, mathematics, geography, history, science, logic and literature have been included at different times in traditional and more modern historical moments.
 
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Metadata
Title
Factors associated with recent intimate partner violence experience amongst currently married women in Afghanistan and health impacts of IPV: a cross sectional study
Authors
Andrew Gibbs
Julienne Corboz
Rachel Jewkes
Publication date
01-12-2018
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2018
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5507-5

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