Spousal Violence and Mental Health Status in Women Attending Maternal Health Care Center in Sedfa City, Assiut Governorate, Egypt | ||
| The Egyptian Journal of Community Medicine | ||
| Article 6, Volume 39, Issue 2, April 2021, Pages 69-82 PDF (731.75 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejcm.2021.167554 | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Background: Violence against women is a universal phenomenon that affects not only women physical and mental health but also affects their behavior and their every day’s activity. Objective: To measure the prevalence of violence and explore its effect on the mental health status of women. Method: A cross-sectional comparative study was carried out on 500 women attending the Sedfa health center during the last year from October 2016 using a semi-structured questionnaire personal interview and WHO Self- Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Study proposal was approved by Faculty of Medicine IRB before data collection. Also, an official permission from Assiut health directorate was obtained. Appropriate hypothesis testing tests were used and p- value ≤ 0.05 was used as the significance level. Results: In the year prior to the study, 4 out of 10 participants were victims of verbal violence, husbands were the committer in 71.3% of all violent events, less than one fifth (17.6% ) of violence victims in the present study sought help, and woman’s family is the source of support in more than three quarters of those who asked for help. Predictors for exposure to violence were husband’s drug abuse and living in extended family (OR = 8.2, 1.7 respectively). Generally, women exposed to violence achieved higher scores of SRQ-20 with 49.0% were classified as affected mental health status. Exposure to violence significantly increases poor mental health status risk by about 3 times (OR = 2.86, P<0.001). Conclusions: Women in Sedfa city are exposed to spousal violence which has a negative effect on their mental health status. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Mental health; violence; partner violence; violence against women | ||
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