Knowledge and Attitude Towards Intimate Partner Violence Among Ever-Married Women

Effective approaches are needed to address high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in developing countries. Among them, addressing the attitudes of women justifying IPV is crucial. Yet, Sri Lankan studies so far have not adequately examined the community members’ knowledge and attitude toward IPV. Hence, this study aimed at i) describing knowledge and attitude towards IPV among women, ii) explore the association of socio-demographic variables with knowledge and attitude towards IPV, and iii) examine the association of knowledge and attitude with the abuse experiences. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with women (n = 600) aged 15-49 years from a selected health administrative area in Sri Lanka. Multistage cluster sampling was used to select participants and data collection was performed using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Descriptive summaries, cross-tabulations and logistic regression analysis were performed to describe and explore the associations. Most respondents had poor knowledge (64.3%, n=386) on IPV with approximately half of them having attitudes generally justifying IPV (48.7%, n=292). Women with low levels of education and low household income were more likely to justify IPV. Further, employed women had good knowledge on IPV. Poor knowledge on IPV increased the risk of being abuse by 1.5 times and women who had justifying attitudes toward IPV had two times risk of being abuse. The necessity of interventions to be targeted on knowledge and attitudes and the contributory socio-demographic factors such as education, employment and income are emphasized.