Gender-based violence: A correlates of adverse reproductive health outcomes among married women in Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Adverse reproductive health outcome (unwanted pregnancy, abortion and/or still birth) are a major sexual and reproductive health problem worldwide. This study was done to assess the magnitude of adverse reproductive health outcomes and its correlates with gender-based violence. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from January to June 2015 using the World Health Organization multi-country and Ethiopian Demography Health Survey (EDMS) questionnaire to measure adverse reproductive health outcome and violence against women. A multistage random sampling technique was used to select households from community. Trained data collectors interviewed 832 married women who were selected by systematic sampling technique in Debre Tabor, Northwest Ethiopia. Epi info version 6.0 for data entry and SPSS version 20 for analysis were used. Data were principally analyzed using binary logistic regression. Results: Three hundred and eleven (37.4%) of women had experienced at least one type of adverse reproductive health outcomes in their life time, such as unwanted pregnancy (22.2%), abortion (16.8%) and still birth (5.8%). Gender-based violence (AOR = 1.28; 95%CI: 1.08-1.98), such as psychological violence (AOR= 1.38:95% CI; 1.05- 2.29), physical violence (AOR=2.48; 95%CI: 1.60- 3.85) and sexual violence (AOR=1.31:95% CI: 1.01- 1.99) were factors associated with an increased risk of adverse reproductive health outcomes. Psychological violence (AOR= 1.94; 95%CI; 1.07- 3.50), physical violence (AOR=1.88; 95%C1; 1.13- 3.12) and sexual violence (AOR= 1.84; 95%CI; 1.17- 2.28) were factors associated with an increased risk of unwanted pregnancy. Physical violence (AOR=l. 19; 95%C1; 1.12-2.83) and sexual violence (AOR= 1.80; 95%CI; 1.11 -2.93) were factors associated with an increased risk of abortion. While physical violence (AOR= 2.10; 95%CI; 1.86-5.11) was factor associated with an increased risk of still birth. Conclusions: Adverse reproductive health outcome was a serious problem and gender-based violence led to significantly increased risk of adverse reproductive health outcomes among married women. Multifaceted interventions such as male counseling, increasing awareness on the consequences of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) will help to reduce adverse reproductive health outcomes.