Violence against women a social evil in the society despite a lot of talk of
women empowerment. Assessmentof burden in terms of
prevalence will go a long way in
planning the services for those affected bydomestic
violence. To find the
prevalence of
domestic violence and associated
risk factors among marriedfemales in a
rural area of Jammu. This
community based
cross-sectional study was conducted amongrural married
females using a structured and pretested
questionnaire. Data was analysed using simpleproportions,
chi-square test and
logistic regression. 171/301(56.6%) of the
respondents reported someform of the
domestic violence. Psychological, physical and
sexual violence rates were found to be32.16%, 9.9% and 2.33% respectively. A statistically significant
association was found with variables likeliteracy, type of
family,
family income,
sex of
children etc. Relatively high levels of
domestic violence inthis rural setting calls for a multidisciplinary approach involving improvement of
literacy levels amongfemales, creating
awareness about
legal aid and
screening the victims at primary
health centres to mitigatethis problem.