Domestic violence and child health outcomes in Zimbabwe
Date
2009-10-22T09:48:19Z
Authors
De Wet, Nicole
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Abstract
Abstract:
Background: This study intends to examine the association between domestic violence and
selected negative child health outcomes in Zimbabwe. While studies have identified a number of
factors affecting child health outcomes, the role of domestic violence has been neglected.
Domestic violence, as a global public health concern, has been related to reproductive health
outcomes, such as unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, lack of contraceptive use, preterm delivery
and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. In addition, the reduction of child
mortality levels worldwide has become a prominent issue and is addressed as Goal 4 in the
Millennium Development Goals. However, the possibility of domestic violence being related to
the health outcomes of their children has not been explored in the African context.
Methods: This study is a secondary data analysis of the 2005/2006 Zimbabwe Demographic and
Health Survey (ZDHS). The ZDHS has been chosen as it is representative of the country as a
whole. The total sample of 2,152 women who participated in the Domestic Violence module of
the ZDHS was used in this study. Thus the population of interest in this study is physically
abused Zimbabwean women who have children. The outcome variables of this study are poor
nutritional health outcomes, stunting, wasting and underweight and under-five child mortality.
The predictor variables are physical violence experiences, including, domestic violence, being hit
during pregnancy and sexual violence. The data analysis happened in three stages. The first
being univariate analysis of the variables in this study, to provide descriptive statistics of the
study population. The second stage was bivariate analysis producing odds ratios to examine the
association between each of the predictor variables with each of the outcome variables. The final
stage was multivariate analysis using logistic regression and producing odds rations to examine
more than one predictor variable with each outcome variable to obtain an association.
Results: Associations were found between physical violence and the various negative child
health outcomes. Of importance, domestic violence and being hit during pregnancy was found to
increase the condition of wasting in under-five children. Similarly being hit during pregnancy is
associated with increased odds of having underweight young children. Increased likelihood of
the underweight condition is also associated with sexual violence experiences of the mother.
However, sexual violence is not associated with stunting and / or wasting in under-five children.