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. 2018 Aug 9;18(1):136.
doi: 10.1186/s12905-018-0628-7.

Intimate partner violence against women in Nigeria: a multilevel study investigating the effect of women's status and community norms

Faith Owunari Benebo  1 , Barbara Schumann  2 , Masoud Vaezghasemi  2
Affiliations

Intimate partner violence against women in Nigeria: a multilevel study investigating the effect of women's status and community norms

Faith Owunari Benebo et al. BMC Womens Health. .

Abstract

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women has been recognised as a public health problem with far-reaching consequences for the physical, reproductive, and mental health of women. The ecological framework portrays intimate partner violence as a multifaceted phenomenon, demonstrating the interplay of factors at different levels: individual, community, and the larger society. The present study examined the effect of individual- and community-level factors on IPV in Nigeria, with a focus on women's status and community-level norms among men.

Methods: A cross-sectional study based on the latest Nigerian Demographic Health Survey (2013) was conducted involving 20,802 ever-partnered women aged 15-49 years. Several multilevel logistic regression models were calibrated to assess the association of individual- and community-level factors with IPV. Both measures of association (fixed effect) and measures of variations (random effect) were reported.

Results: Almost one in four women in Nigeria reported having ever experienced intimate partner violence. Having adjusted for other relevant covariates, higher women's status reduced the odds of IPV (OR = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.32-0.71). However, community norms among men that justified IPV against women modified the observed protective effect of higher women's status against IPV and reversed the odds (OR = 1.89; 95% CI = 1.26-2.83).

Conclusions: Besides women's status, community norms towards IPV are an important factor for the occurrence of IPV. Thus, addressing intimate partner violence against women calls for community-wide approaches aimed at changing norms among men alongside improving women's status.

Keywords: Community norms; Intimate partner violence; Multilevel analysis; Nigeria; women’s status.

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Conflict of interest statement

The survey procedure and instruments used in the Demographic and Health Survey had already received ethical approval from the National Health Research Ethics Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria and the Ethics Committee of the Opinion Research Corporation Macro international, Inc. (ORC Macro Inc., Calverton, MD; USA). Permission to use the DHS data in the present study was obtained from The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program. The dataset does not contain any individual identifiers that would make it possible to track any participant.

Not applicable

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proportion of respondents who reported experience of any Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and the different forms of IPV
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Overlap between the forms of intimate partner violence among women who reported experience of IPV
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Fixed effect cross level interaction between men’s justification of IPV in the community and individual women’s status
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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