Exploring the impact of intimate partner violence on children's behavior in urban slums of Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is highly prevalent in Bangladesh especially in lower socioeconomic groups. The aim of this research was to identify the prevalence and nature of IPV and determine its association with young children‟s behavior in urban slums.
Methods & Materials: This cross-sectional survey was conducted on married women with at least one child aged 4-5 years and living with the father of that child (n = 182). The socioeconomic status (SES) questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and IPV questionnaire were used to collect data. The SDQ consists of 4 subscales of difficulties and 1 prosocial subscale. Bivariate correlations and multiple regression analysis were conducted to determine the association of SDQ with IPV.

Almost 90% of women had at least once experienced any type of IPV. Some married women had experienced all types of physical, emotional, and sexual violence by their husband throughout their married life. Children, whose mothers experienced IPV, had higher scores of total difficulties on SDQ as well as emotional symptoms and conduct problems compared to those whose mothers did not experience IPV. The study showed that 1 unit increase in emotional violence by the intimate partner independently led to the increase of the total difficulties score by 0.60 units and the emotional symptom problems by 0.28 units (P ≤ 0.05). The regression models showed the 1 unit increase in physical violence by the intimate partner predicted an increase of 0.59 units in the child‟s total difficulties scores (P ≤ 0.05).

IPV is widely prevalent in Bangladesh and affects children‟s behavior. The implications for developing policy to educate and intervene are immense and emphasis must be placed on the age appropriate development of exposed children