The association between women's disability and acceptance towards intimate partner violence among women and their male partners: A multi-country analysis

Abstract

Objective: To examine whether disabled women are more likely to report accepting attitudes towards intimate partner violence (IPV) than non-disabled women, and whether male partners of disabled women are more likely to accept IPV than male partners of non-disabled women. Methods: Secondary analysis of nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) in nine countries. Logistic regression examined the relationship between (1) women's disability and IPV acceptance (n = 114 695) and (2) women's disability and their male partners' IPV acceptance (n = 20 566); pooled and country-specific estimates were calculated. Results: IPV acceptance ranged from 5% to 80% among women and from 5% to 56% among male partners. Overall, disabled women were more accepting of IPV than non-disabled women (pooled adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08–1.20), with country-specific aOR ranging from 1.05 to 1.63. Overall, disabled women's male partners had higher likelihood of IPV acceptance than non-disabled women's partners (pooled aOR 1.13, 95% CI 1.00–1.28).; country-specific estimates varied (aOR range from 0.56 to 1.40). Conclusion: Disabled women and their male partners had higher IPV acceptance compared with non-disabled women and their male partners. More research is needed to better understand this association, including disability-associated discrimination. Findings underscore the importance of more research with disabled women and their partners to address IPV.