Prevalence of Domestic Violence and Quality of Life among Ever-Married Women in Etawah District: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Domestic violence (DV) is one of the most common forms of gender-based violence and represents a major public health, social, and human rights concern worldwide. It adversely affects women’s physical and psychological health while significantly reducing their quality of life. The purpose of the study was to assess the prevalence of domestic violence and quality of life among ever-married women.
Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 593 ever-married women (15–49 years) in rural areas between January 2019 and June 2020, using multistage random sampling. Socio-demographic and domestic violence data were collected, and quality of life was assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire [21]. Data were analysed with SPSS version 24.
Results: The overall prevalence of domestic violence was 27.5%, with 24.8% of women reporting psychological violence and 20.4% reporting physical violence. Among the quality-of-life domains, the social domain showed the highest score (68.56 ± 12.6), followed by the environmental domain (66.78 ± 12.0), while the psychological domain (58.08 ± 12.3) and physical domain (56.16 ± 9.6) recorded the lowest scores. This suggests that social and environmental well-being were relatively stronger than physical and psychological well-being.
Conclusion: More than one-fourth of ever-married women experienced domestic violence, with psychological violence being more common than physical violence. Women exposed to domestic violence had a statistically non-significant poorer physical and psychological quality of life. Strengthening community awareness, women’s empowerment, and early identification of victims is essential to reducing the burden of domestic violence and improving women’s quality of life.