EXPERIENCE OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE AMONG MARRIED MEN IN IBADAN NORTH WEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Abstract

Intimate partner violence is a public health issue which should be of concern to everyone. There are quite a number of studies which focus mainly on women as victims yet there exist a great percentage of men who are suffering silently from this scourge. There are very few studies that explored this area because it is a patriarchal society. This study was carried out to assess the experience of intimate partner violence among married men in Ibadan North West Local Government Area (IBNWLGA), Oyo State, Nigeria. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional survey which involved the use of a three stage random sampling technique. The process included: random selection of seven wards out of the eleven wards in the local government; stratification of IBNWLGA into three by characteristics and selection of 400 respondents from 650 households through purposive sampling. A validated semi structured interviewer administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and t tests were used to analyse data. Respondents’ mean age was 40.5/ ±9.93, 46.3% had tertiary education and 70% were Christians. Majority of the respondents had one wife (88.5%) and over half had been married for less than ten years (59.3%). A total number of 56.8% respondents had a positive history of alcohol intake while 18.55 had ever smoked cigarette. A large percentage of the respondents (83.3%) perceived that men ought not to talk to their wives harshly. The forms of physical violence ever experienced by the men include slaps (13%), throwing an object (7.4%), bites (6.1%) and throwing punches (6.6%). The most common forms of psychological violence ever experienced by the men were nagging (36.2%), ignoring and treating him indifferently (34%), insulting and making him feel bad about himself (24.2%). Refusing to have sex with the man (29.2%) and insistence on anal sex (5.9%) were some forms of sexual violence ever experienced by the respondents. Further analysis was carried out to determine the percentage of respondents who experienced the various forms of violence alone, a combination of two forms and all the three forms too. Results are as follows; psychological violence alone- 30.7%, sexual violence alone- 21.2% , physical violence alone- 10.8%, psychological and sexual violence -16.2%, psychological and physical violence – 8.7%, physical and sexual violence -6.3%. A percentage of 6.1% had ever

experienced all forms of intimate partner violence. There was significant relationship between history of violence and the three forms of violence. The experience of intimate partner violence by men is common. Public enlightenment, social support, family life education and counselling are recommended for addressing the problem.