World studies of abuse in the family environment--risk factors for physical intimate partner violence.

Objectives: To identify risk factors for physical intimate partner violence against women in Chile, India, Egypt and the Philippines.

Design: Population-based household survey.

Settings: Selected urban communities in Temuco, Chile; ISmailia, Egypt; Lucknow, Trivandrum and Vellore in India and Metro Manila, Philippines.

Participants: Women aged 15-49 years of age who care for at least one child younger than 18 years of age. The number of participants was 442 in Chile, 631 in Egypt, 506 in Lucknow, 700 in Trivandrum, 716 in Vellore and 1000 in the Philippines.

Main outcome measure: Risk of and protective factors against lifetime physical IPV.

Results: Significant associations were found between several risk factors like regular alcohol consumption of the husband/partner, past witnessing of father beating mother, the woman's poor mental health and poor family work status, with any lifetime physical IPV. Woman's poor mental health and witnessing father beat mother were statistically significant only in a few sites. Poor family work status, differences in employment between husband and wife and experiencing harsh physical punishment during childhood, were not found to be statistically significant across all sites. Protective factors, like higher levels of husband's and wife's education, were only found to be significantly associated with any lifetime physical IPV in Trivandrum, India. Social support was not significantly associated with any lifetime physical IPV across all sites.

Conclusions: These large population-based household surveys have provided empirical evidence of the widespread nature of domestic violence and the relative commonality of risk factors across sites.