Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. Intimate partner violence IPV is an important public health issue with severe adverse consequences. This study was conducted among women residing in urban Karachi, to estimate the prevalence and frequency of different forms of IPV and their associations with sociodemographic factors.
This cross-sectional community-based study was conducted using a structured questionnaire developed by the World Health Organisation for research on violence. Community midwives conducted face-to-face interviews with married women aged 25β60 years.
Self-reported past-year and lifetime prevalence of physical violence was Violent incidents were mostly reported to have occurred on more than three occasions during the lifetime.
Risk factors for physical violence related mainly to the husband, his low educational attainment, unskilled worker status, and five or more family members living in one household. For psychological violence, the risk factors were the husband being an unskilled worker and low socioeconomic status of the family. Repeated violence perpetrated by a husband towards his wife is an extremely common phenomenon in Karachi, Pakistan. Indifference to this type of violence against women stems from the attitude that IPV is a private matter, usually considered a justifiable response to misbehavior on the part of the wife.
Keywords: intimate partner violence, domestic violence, Pakistan, gender inequality, prevalence, frequency, risk factors. Intimate partner violence IPV is the most common form of violence faced by women in both high- and low-income countries and, due to its magnitude, is recognized as a substantial public health problem.
