Factors Associated with Intimate Partner Violence among Married Women.

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence refers to any behavior within an intimate relationship that causes physical, psychological or sexual harm to those in the relationship. Various factors such as alcohol or substance abuse, history of violence in family, extra marital affair, educational status, socio-economic status, decision making power, and established gender role are linked with Intimate partner violence. This study aims to identify the prevalence of different forms of intimate partner violence and its associated factors among married women in Shankharapur municipality of Kathmandu District. METHODS: A concurrent triangulation design was used. Quantitative data were collected from 602 married females while qualitative data was collected from 11 participants. Multivariate logistic regression was done using Stata MP13 version. Thematic analysis was done for qualitative data. Triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative findings waere done. RESULTS: The prevalence of Intimate partner violence was found to be 22.1%. After logistic regression, it was found that women's involvement in community groups had lower odds (AOR 0.67, 95%CI 0.6-0.7) of IPV as compared to those who were not involved in community groups. Additionally, findings from the qualitative study showed female being victims of different forms of violence. CONCLUSIONS: Still, Female are the sufferers of violence behind the closed doors and mitigation strategies should have to be adopted from different levels of government to control intimate partner violence.

Factors Affecting Psychoactive Substances Use Among Bachelor Level Students of Nepalgunj SubMetropolitan City.

BACKGROUND: Psychoactive substance use among Bachelor level students have different risk and protective biological, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors. This study was conducted with the aim to explore the factors affecting psychoactive substance use among Bachelor level students of Nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city. METHODS: A qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted among Bachelor level students from different streams of Nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city. Pre-validated Interview Guidelines was used for 13 In-depth Interviews with Bachelor level students from different streams using psychoactive substances and 12 Key Informant Interviews with parents/guardians and teachers of some of the selected students. Deductive thematic analysis based on Domain model was done to explore the risk and protective factors for psychoactive substance use. RESULTS: The study identified different risk and protective factors affecting psychoactive substance use within each biological, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociocultural domain. Major risk factors identified were adolescence and teenage, male sex, curiosity and experimentation, use for fun, to relieve or cope stress/tension, inadequate awareness, peer influence and pressure, use of psychoactive substances in family, availability, advertisements, social acceptance, and lack of strict rules and regulations. Major protective factors identified were adequate awareness, negative perception, self-motivation, lack of free time/leisure, mentality/state of mind, personal responsibilities, guidance from family, negative perception of society, and reputation. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing awareness, developing positive attitudes, reducing social acceptance, and implementation of strict rules and regulations may help minimize and/or eliminate psychoactive substance use by Bachelor level students.