Domestic Violence and its Associated Factors among Married Women of Varanasi

Abstract

Background: Domestic violence experienced by married women with mental illness, with physical illness (obstetric and gynecological morbidity) and with no illness (normal healthy women), is a nearly universal phenomenon. Materials and Methods: The study design was cross-sectional case–control study. A total of 165 married women (group: mental illness, with physical illness and with no illness) between the ages of 16 and 45 were randomly selected. The study was conducted in the hospital, which is a tertiary care center with a huge catchment area that extends from Uttar Pradesh, to Bihar, and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Nepal. People living in this area largely come from middle, lower, and poor socioeconomic strata and have low level of literacy. Results: Perceived factors were reported exclusively by the married women with mental illness: alleged disrespect to elders, considers wife as property of husband, disability, instigated by family members, violating family norms, tradition of wife abuse in the family, unacceptable abnormal wife, unacceptable wife/daughter-in-law with mental illness, antisocial personality traits, and cannabis use dependence. Conclusions: Domestic violence (spousal) is most frequent and severe in married women with mental illness, then in married women with physical illness, and least in healthy married women. Higher husband's age and lower wife's age were predictors of domestic violence perpetrated by husbands in married healthy women.