Partner alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence against women in sexual unions in sub-Saharan Africa

Aboagye, Richard Gyan, Ahinkorah, Bright Opoku, Tengan, Charles Lwanga, Salifu, Iddrisu, Acheampong, Henry Yaw, and Seidu, Abdul-Aziz (2022) Partner alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence against women in sexual unions in sub-Saharan Africa. PLoS ONE, 17 (12). e0278196.

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Abstract

Introduction: Intimate partner violence is increasingly gaining attention as the leading form of violence against women globally, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. Given that substance abuse, especially alcohol consumption has long been associated with aggressive behaviour, emotional abuse, and sexual misconduct, it is surprising that studies on the potential association between partner’s alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence are scarce. The current study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by examining the association between partner’s alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence among women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Methods: Cross-sectional survey data of 89,229 women aged 15 to 49 in sexual unions from 21 sub-Saharan African countries were pooled from the Demographic and Health Surveys. Percentages with their corresponding confidence intervals (CIs) were used to present the results of the prevalence of partner’s alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence. Multivariable binary logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between partner’s alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence. The regression analysis results were presented using adjusted odds ratio (aOR) with 95% CI. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05.

Results: The pooled prevalence of partner alcohol consumption was 36.3% [36.0–36.6]. The highest prevalence of partner alcohol consumption was found in Burundi (67.1%) with Mali (3.9%) recording the lowest prevalence. Similarly, the overall prevalence of physical violence, emotional violence, and sexual violence among the women were 19.7% [19.2–20.2], 25.0% [24.5–25.5], and 9.7% [9.3–10.1], respectively. In the pooled data, women whose partners consumed alcohol were more likely to experience physical violence [aOR = 2.37, 95% CI = 2.24–2.50], emotional violence [aOR = 1.96, 95% CI = 1.86–2.07], and sexual violence [aOR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.89–2.18] compared to those whose partners did not consume alcohol. In all the 21 countries, women whose partners consumed alcohol had higher odds for physical and emotional violence. The odds of sexual violence was higher among women whose partners consumed alcohol compared to their counterparts whose partners did not in 20 countries, except Namibia.

Conclusions: We found that partner’s alcohol consumption increases women’s likelihood of experiencing physical, emotional, and sexual violence in sub-Saharan Africa. There is the need to implement behavioural change interventions targeted at male partners to reduce alcohol consumption. The findings call for the need to effectively create and organize support networks in addressing intimate partner violence among married and cohabiting women.

Item ID: 77554
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Copyright Information: © 2022 Aboagye et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Research Data: https://dhsprogram.com/data/dataset/Angola_Standard-DHS_2015.cfm?flag=1, https://dhsprogram.com/data/dataset/Congo-Democratic-Republic_Standard-DHS_2013.cfm?flag=1, https://dhsprogram.com/data/dataset/Cameroon_Standard-DHS_2018.cfm?flag=1
Date Deposited: 16 Mar 2023 00:15
FoR Codes: 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420606 Social determinants of health @ 100%
SEO Codes: 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200401 Behaviour and health @ 100%
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