Prevalence of Gender Based Violence and Associated Factors among Female Students of Menkorer High School in Debre Markos Town, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Gender based violence (GBV) is a common reproductive health problem especially in developing countries. It commonly occurs among women and young girls than men, and it has several sexual and reproductive health complications like STIs including HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and other complications. So, this research is done to assess the prevalence of GBV and associated factors among Menkorer high school female students in Debre Markos town, Ethiopia. Methodology: Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted among 140 female high school students of Debre Markos town. All randomly selected regular female students were included in the study. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. For data entry EpiData version 3.1 and for analysis SPSS version 22 software were used. Descriptive analysis was done to describe the frequency and percentage of dependent and independent variables. To identify possible factors associated with the dependent variable, bivariate and multivariate analysis were done. 95% confidence interval (CI) and p-value less than 5% were used to determine the association. Result: The prevalence of Gender based violence (physical or/and sexual violence) during the current academic year was 72 (57.3%), while life time prevalence of GBV was 67.7%. The prevalence of life time physical violence and physical violence during the current academic year was 82 (66.1%) and 68 (54.8%) respectively. Thirty (24.2%) have experience life time sexual violence. Factors associated with gender based violence were educational performance of good and above (AOR=0.09, 95%CI 0.009-0.88), and never drinking alcohol (AOR=0.38, 95%CI 0.15-0.93). Conclusion and Recommendation: This study found that gender based violence is still a common problem among high school female students. The prevalence of current and life time physical and sexual violence among female students was high. So, school and community based services like awareness creation for both male and female students on GBV and laws related with GBV should be strengthened.