Intimate partner violence: estimating the prevalence of partner-inflicted psychological maltreatment experienced by female workers in a tertiary healthcare facility in southwestern Nigeria.

Résumé

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global health problem that involves harmful, aggressive, and potentially life-threatening abuse against a partner in an intimate relationship. IPV may involve physical, verbal, psychological, or emotional abuse with an intercalating pattern of occurrence. Females are primarily victims of IPV, with men as perpetrators in most cases. Female healthcare workers also suffer from IPV, much like the general women population. However, most previous studies only focused on IPV in the general women population without particular focus on female workers in the healthcare sector. METHODS: Our study employed a cross-sectional design using a semi-structured self-administered questionnaire involving 282 female healthcare workers. The survey focused on various forms of IPV, including psychological, verbal, and domineering/isolation abuses. Data was entered using SPSS version 23, and univariate and bivariate analyses were done using STATA 14. Informed consent and ethical approval were obtained. RESULTS: Our respondents were mostly Yorubas (93.3%) and Christians (95.7%), primarily nurses (42.2%) and administrative officers (33.3%). Findings indicate a high prevalence of psychological abuse, with 74.1% of participants reporting mild to severe forms. Psychological abuse was the most common, followed by verbal and domineering/isolation abuses. Mild abuse is the most common form across all abuse types. Nurses suffered from IPV the most. There was a significant association between marital status and increased susceptibility to various forms of IPV. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of IPV, particularly psychological maltreatment among female healthcare workers, underscores the critical need for comprehensive intervention strategies. These strategies should include workplace policies and societal efforts aimed at reducing IPV and supporting victims.