Authors: Eka PO, Swende TZ, Hembah-Hilekaan SK, Ojabo AO, Utoo BT, Audu Onyemocho, Unazi EU
Background: In male-dominated societies like Nigeria, women are consistently blamed for a couple’s infertility. Such women are more vulnerable to domestic violence in comparison to their fertile counterparts.
Objective: To determine the magnitude of domestic violence among a cohort of infertile and fertile women in Makurdi, North-Central Nigeria.
Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study involving 144 infertile women and 144 fertile women attending the gynaecological clinic at Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi, NorthCentral Nigeria. Eligible respondents were selected using systematic random sampling. Questions pertaining to socio-demographic characteristics, subclasses of domestic violence and perpetrators of such violence were used to obtain information from the respondents. The data were analysed using SPSS version 20 and the degree of significance set at less than 0.05.
Results: The mean ages of the infertile and fertile respondents were 32.0 (± 5.7) and 33.5 (± 4.9) respectively. Majority were married (94.4%) and 95.8% were Christians. Majority of the respondents had tertiary level of education (63.2%). The prevalence of domestic violence among the infertile and fertile groups was 62.5% and 54.2% respectively. The major subclass of violence was emotional violence and the major perpetrators of domestic violence were the spouses, followed by female in-laws.
Conclusion: Domestic violence was higher among the infertile respondents, with emotional violence being the commonest subclass of violence. Spouses were the major culprits of violence.
We recommend that every woman attending our gynaecological clinics for infertility evaluation should be screened, treated and supported for domestic violence if necessary.
View/Download pdf