Impact of socio-demographic factors on different aspects of violence against women in Upper Egypt

Abstract

Violence against women is social violence though practiced on individual level because the society accepts this violence and in many cases encourages it. Condemnation of any kind of violence is a basic assumption in our current research. The aim of this study was to explore impact of various socio-demographic factors on different aspects of violence against women. Descriptive design was used to conduct this research .This study was carried out in faculty of Nursing at Sohag University. The sample consisted of 194 clients. Tools used in this study, included patient assessment sheet (tool I), the SocioEconomic statues (Tool II), and the aspects of violence against women questionnaire (Tool III). Results: The current study showed predominance of various aspects of domestic gender based violence, as the majority of our clients opinion preference of having male children (69%), and favoring female circumcision (51%). A considerable proportion of the study participants encouraged early mirage of girls (24%), polygamy (15.5%), support negligence of female opinion (27%), believe in his right of wife beating (14%) or rape (12%), and wouldn"t mind of controlling his wife"s income (9%). Conclusion & Recommendation: Considerable proportions of our clients showed negative attitude towards female gender in terms of preferring male than female children, early marriage of female children, polygamy and spousal violence that may take the following forms; wife batting, wife rape, control of wife income or stingy behavior toward wife. So it is prudent to highlight the purpose and essence of marriage in religion. It is also judicious to maximize the role of health care providers, as nurses in identifying women at high risk of domestic violence (through screening programs in prenatal clinics) and backing and teaching them how to manage an illness tacking into consideration WHO recommendations.