Experience of Intimate Partner Violence of Women at Reproductive Age Group in India and Their Decision-Making Power

Introduction: Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global public health issue, and at least 30% of women have exposed to some form of IPV in their lifetime. It was aimed to examine the association between IPV and women's decision-making power in India from the data provided by the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4) 2015-2016. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study where data were collected from the NFHS-4 2015-2016 of India. A total of 670,615 women aged between 15 to 49 years completed the interviews (196,987 women participated from urban areas and 470,578 women from rural areas and 3050 women were from slums). Data were analysed using IBM SPSS version 24. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 29.83 (+/- 9.76) years, 35.4% of women belong to 15-24 years of age category, 70.7% of respondents are from the rural area, 28% of women have no education, only 23.4% of women were employed and about 45.9% of women are using mobile phones. The findings show that place of residence, educational status, employment status, possession of mobile phones, age, knowledge of loans programme and husband/partner age, husband/partner educational level and consumption of alcohol are significantly associated with decision making power of women (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The abused women might attempt to respond to the abuse by trying to control other aspects of her life and making decisions alone without their spouse. This research indicated important factors responsible for decision-making amongst the reproductive women in India.