• BMJ open · Mar 2021

    Household food insecurity and its association with self-reported male perpetration of intimate partner violence: a survey of two districts in central and western Uganda.

    • George Awungafac, Stephen Mugamba, Fred Nalugoda, Carl Fredrik Sjöland, Godfrey Kigozi, Susanne Rautiainen, Robert Bulamba Malyabe, Leo Ziegel, Gertrude Nakigozi, Grace Kigozi Nalwoga, Emmanuel Kyasanku, James Nkale, Stephen Watya, Anna Mia Ekström, and Anna Kågesten.
    • Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden awungafacg@yahoo.com.
    • BMJ Open. 2021 Mar 31; 11 (3): e045427.

    ObjectivesThis study aimed to determine the lifetime prevalence of male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV), and to assess the association with food insecurity, sociodemographic factors and health risk behaviours in Uganda in the year preceding COVID-19-associated lockdowns.DesignPopulation-based, cross-sectional household survey.SettingUrban, semiurban and rural communities of the Wakiso and Hoima districts in Uganda.ParticipantsA total of N=2014 males aged 13-80 years participated in the survey. The current study included males who reported having ever been in a sexual union and responded to the IPV questions (N=1314).MeasuresData were collected face-to-face from May 2018 to July 2019 using an interviewer-mediated questionnaire. Lifetime IPV perpetration was measured as 'no physical and/or sexual IPV', 'physical' versus 'sexual violence only', and 'physical and sexual violence'. Past-year food insecurity was measured through the Food Insecurity Experience Scale and categorised into 'none', 'low' and 'high'. Multinomial logistic regression was used to determine the crude and adjusted relative risk ratios (aRRRs) of IPV perpetration in relation to self-reported food insecurity, adjusting for sociodemographic and health risk behaviours.ResultsThe prevalence of self-reported lifetime IPV perpetration was 14.6% for physical and 6.5% for sexual violence, while 5.3% reported to have perpetrated both physical and sexual IPV. Most (75.7%) males reported no food insecurity, followed by low (20.7%) and high (3.6%) food insecurity. In adjusted models, food insecurity was associated with increased risk of having perpetrated both physical and sexual violence (aRRR=2.57, 95% CI 1.52 to 4.32). IPV perpetration was also independently associated with having had more than one lifetime sexual partner and drinking alcohol, but not with education level or religion.ConclusionThis study suggests that food insecurity is associated with male IPV perpetration, and more efforts are needed to prevent and mitigate the expected worsening of this situation as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…