Prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence against mothers of children under-five years in Central Malawi
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Prevalence and determinants of intimate partner violence against mothers of children under-five years in Central Malawi Emmanuel Chilanga1,2* , Delphine Collin-Vezina2, Mohammad Nuruzzaman Khan3 and Liam Riley4
Abstract Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global human rights violation and a public health problem. The phenomenon is linked to adverse health effects for women and children. Mothers of young children in Malawi can be particularly at risk because of gender-based power imbalances. The objectives of this study were to examine the prevalence and the risk factors of IPV against mothers of children under-five years of age in rural Malawi. Methods: A multistage, cross-sectional study design was used. A sample of 538 mothers of young children was randomly selected from postnatal clinics in Dowa district. The WHO’s Violence against women screening instrument was used to collect data. Logistic regressions were used to determine risk factors that were associated with IPV against mothers. Results: Overall prevalence of all four forms of IPV against mothers of under-five children was 60.2%. The prevalence of IPV controlling behavior, psychological, physical, and sexual violence were 74.7, 49.4, 43.7 and 73.2% respectively. In multivariate analyses, mothers whose partners had extra marital affairs were more likely to experience controlling behavior (AOR: 4.97, 95% CI: 2.59–8.55, P = 0.001), psychological (AOR: 2.14, 95% CI: 1.486– 3.472, P = 0.001) and physical (AOR: 2.29, 95% CI: 1.48–3.94, P = 0.001) violence than mothers whose partners did not have extra marital affairs. Mothers whose partners consume alcohol were more likely to experience sexual violence (AOR: 2.00, 95% CI: 1.17–3.41, P = 0.001) than mothers whose partners did not drink. Finally, mothers who spent more than 30 min drawing water were at greater risk of experiencing IPV than mothers who spent less than 30 min. Conclusion: This study found a significantly higher prevalence of IPV against mothers of under-five children in rural Malawi compared to women in the general population. Micro and macro-level programs aimed at mitigating the partners’ potential risk behaviors identified in this study are suggested. Public health programs that support increased household access to safe water are also recommended to help undermine IPV against mothers. Keywords: Intimate partner violence, Mothers, Prevalence, Risk factors, Malawi
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Geography, University of Livingstonia, Livingstonia, Malawi 2 Centre for Research on Children and Families, School of Social Work, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the s
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