Understanding Help-Seeking Behavior Among Intimate Partner Violence Victims in Nigeria

This study sought to examine help-seeking behaviors among Nigerian women who had experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). Out of 3,802 women who reported that they had experienced IPV in the past year, two-thirds (67%) of the women did not seek any help, 31% sought informal help, and only 1.9% sought formal help. A multinomial regression was run in order to examine factors associated with seeking formal help or informal help, with seeking no help used as the reference group. Higher education, witnessing their father hit their mother, husband's controlling behaviors, experiencing physical IPV, and having a physical injury were all related to informal help-seeking compared to seeking no help. Witnessing their father hit their mother, experiencing physical IPV, and physical injury were associated with formal help-seeking. The results of this study can potentially be used to reduce barriers to help-seeking among women who have experienced IPV in Nigeria. Implications are discussed.