Primary Submission Category: Disability
Disability and future risk of intimate partner violence – Evidence from a longitudinal study in rural Pakistan
Authors: Amanda Collins Joanna Maselko
Presenting Author: Amanda Collins*
About 1 in 4 women worldwide are estimated to experience IPV in their lifetime, but in disabled women, this number increases to 1 in 2. While a positive association between disability and IPV has been consistently shown, most of the research exploring this relationship has been cross-sectional.
Participants in this analysis include 894 mothers enrolled in the Bachpan cohort. Disability was measured using the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHO-DAS), which ranges 0-48, with higher scores indicating greater disability, at 1, 2, and 3 years postpartum. Psychological, physical, and sexual IPV were assessed at 2, 3, and 6 years postpartum. Modified Poisson generalized estimating equations adjusting for depression, IPV in preceding wave, baseline age, baseline education, baseline SES, and childhood trauma measured at 3 years were used to determine the association between disability level and IPV in the following wave.
At 1 year follow-up, the mean WHO-DAS score was 4.8, and 39%, 10%, and 21% of participants reported experiencing psychological, physical, and sexual IPV, respectively. After adjustment for confounders, those with medium WHO-DAS scores (10-19) and high scores (20+) were more likely to experience all three types of IPV in the subsequent wave compared to those with low (0-9) scores. Comparing those with high scores to those with low scores, the risk ratio was 1.24 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.46) for psychological IPV, 1.73 (95% CI: 1.16, 2.60) for physical IPV, and 1.44 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.96) for sexual IPV.
This study supports that women with disabilities are especially vulnerable to IPV.