Prevalence and risk factors for spousal violence among women attending health care centres in Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

We conducted a cross-sectional survey to determine the prevalence of, and factors affecting, spousal violence among 3271 ever-married women attending 12 randomly selected family health centres in Alexandria Governorate. More than three-quarters of the participants (77%) reported experiencing spousal violence during their marital life. Emotional violence was the most common type reported (71.0%), followed by physical (50.3%), economic (40.8%) and sexual (37.1%) violence. The study confirms the high prevalence of spousal violence across all socioeconomic strata. Logistic regression analysis indicated large family size, divorce or separation, low educational attainment of husband, smoking habit and drug use in husband, husband's psychological status and history of exposure to physical violence during adolescence were associated with spousal violence. This high rate of spousal violence highlights the urgent need for government and civil society to address the issue, which hinders progress toward Egypt's development goals.