Association between mothers' experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) and under-five morbidity in Nigeria

Joy Osifo, University of Ibadan
Oluwakemi Sigbeku, University of Ibadan
Adebola Adejimi, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology

Aim of this study was to explore association between intimate partner violence (IPV) and illness in childhood. The study was a secondary data analysis of the 2008 Nigeria Demographic Health Survey (NDHS), involving use of a stratified, 2-stage cluster sampling technique to select 21,160 women with at least one child = 5 years old. Main exposure was experience of past-year IPV prior to survey. Outcome measured were risk of fever, acute respiratory infection (ARI) and diarrhoea within the past 2 weeks. The mean age of women and children was 29±6.8 years and 27±17.1 months respectively. Prevalence of past-year IPV was 72.6%. Main predictors of under-five morbidity were sexual and physical IPV experience of mothers (AOR: 1.632; CI: 1.419-1.879) and (AOR: 1.17; CI: 1.02-1.36) respectively. Interventions aimed at improving child morbidity status should target protection of mothers from physical and sexual violence perpetration by their partners.