Citation

Andersson N, Ho-Foster A, Mitchell S, Scheepers E, Goldstein S. BMC Womens Health 2007; 7(1): 11.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/1472-6874-7-11

PMID

17631689

PMCID

PMC2042491

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The baseline to assess impact of a mass education-entertainment programme offered an opportunity to identify risk factors for domestic physical violence. METHODS: In 2002, cross-sectional household surveys in a stratified urban/rural last-stage random sample of enumeration areas, based on latest national census in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Working door to door, interviewers contacted all adults aged 16-60 years present on the day of the visit, without sub-sampling. 20,639 adults interviewed. The questionnaire in 29 languages measured domestic physical violence by the question "In the last year, have you and your partner had violent arguments where your partner beat, kicked or slapped you?" There was no measure of severity or frequency of physical violence. RESULTS: 14% of men (weighted based on 1294/8113) and 18% of women (weighted based on 2032/11063) reported being a victim of partner physical violence in the last year. There was no convincing association with age, income, education, household size and remunerated occupation. Having multiple partners was strongly associated with partner physical violence. Other associations included the income gap within households, negative attitudes about sexuality (for example, men have the right to sex with their girlfriends if they buy them gifts) and negative attitudes about sexual violence (for example, forcing your partner to have sex is not rape). Particularly among men, experience of partner physical violence was associated with potentially dangerous attitudes to HIV infection. CONCLUSIONS: Having multiple partners was the most consistent risk factor for domestic physical violence across all countries. This could be relevant to domestic violence prevention strategies.

Language: en