Factors associated with domestic violence: a cross-sectional survey among women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study aims to identify the factors associated with domestic violence (DV) among women in Jeddah.DesignCross-sectional survey.SettingOutpatient departments of three tertiary hospitals in Jeddah.ParticipantsConvenience sample of women, aged 15–70 years, at the outpatient and inpatient clinics.InterventionsBetween 15 December 2011 and 30 May 2012, a psychologist and a professional health assistant explained the purpose of the research to participants, who were then asked to fill a 50-item questionnaire. The questionnaire was created based on questions from three questionnaires: the NorVold Domestic Abuse Questionnaire, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System and the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. The questionnaire was used to assess the association between DV and family status, male partner attitudes, age, educational attainment, employment, financial and socioeconomic status.ResultsA total of 2301 women participated in the survey (81% response rate). The mean±SD age of the participants was 34.4±10.9 years. The lifetime prevalence of DV was 34%. Abused women had more children than non-abused women (p=0.001), and their spouses were significantly older than those of non-abused women (p<0.0001). Financially dependent women and those with a high educational status were significantly more likely to report abuse (p=0.003 and p<0.001, respectively). Abused women were also likely to report that their spouse was a smoker (p<0.0001) and had completed at least primary or secondary education (p<0.0001). A significantly lower proportion of abused women reported that their male partners were alcohol users (p=0.001). The results of logistic regression showed that women who were financially dependent had about 1.5-fold odds of being physically abused by a spouse.ConclusionsMany factors are associated with DV against women, thereby highlighting the need to design effective DV prevention programmes.

Magnitude and determinants of domestic violence against ever married women in Sohag, Egypt

“…These findings are consistent with. [8,14] A growing body of literature, [5,[8][9][10][11]13,15,[19][20][21][22] support our findings that low level of education of the participants was significantly associated with DV. Our results showed that more than two-thirds illiterate ones or those having primary education only reported exposure to DV compared to less than half those having university degree.…”

“…This is because financial independency of the woman is supposed to be protective against DV, moreover, these women who were dependent on their husband for their basic demands, usually accept and tolerate the violence committed against them. However, our results are inconsistent, [5,[20][21][22] where economic independency and presence of ownership were linked to DV and not the opposite which may be explained by different socioeconomic context in which these studies were conducted.…”

“…Studying sociodemographic characteristics of the surveyed women revealed no significant association between DV and current age of the woman or age at marriage in agreement with [5,[19][20][21] although these findings are inconsistent with [8,14] concerning current age of the participants and [13,22] concerning age at marriage. Moreover, we found no significant association between DV and place of residence, as according to our results more than half the surveyed women resided in both urban and rural areas reported exposure to DV.…”

“…[5,8,14,22] This can be attributed to changing women status in the society and improvement of public awareness about DV which is manifested more among younger men. In agreement, [14] we found that a husbandwife age difference more than 10 years was significantly associated with DV which was confirmed by results of univariate regression analysis.…”

Unsupervised Self-testing as Part Public Health Screening for HIV in Resource-Poor Environments: Some Ethical Considerations

“…In such societies or groups, females may be considered the property either of their parents, or their spouse. Further, women have less access to education [9,25] and thus are more likely to be dependent on males for financial security [25][26][27]. This results in freedom of choice, movement and the ability to exercise autonomy, as understood in twentyfirst century Western societies and health care systems, being severely curtailed.…”