A study to determine factors associated with domestic violence among concordant and discordant couples in Zimbabwe

Background: HIV/AIDS and domestic violence are two of the major health problems affecting the lives of millions of people worldwide. Many people have fallen victim to these two pandemics especially in subSaharan Africa and much of the developing countries. Aim: In the present paper, we investigate factors associated with domestic violence amongst four couple groups namely: concordant negative, concordant positive, discordant male positive and discordant female positive. Methods: Data from the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (2005-2006) was used to run a Chi-square test to compare couples on demographic factors, economic factors and decision making. A logistic regression model which helps to control for confounding was fitted to identify factors associated with domestic violence for the different couple groupings. Results: Domestic violence prevalence ranges from 39.4% to 53.5% for the four couple groupings, which is quite high requiring corrective measures. Concordant positive couples experienced the most domestic violence with 53.5% reporting that they experienced domestic violence and discordant female positive couples experienced the least domestic violence with 39.4% of them reporting that they experienced domestic violence. Among the factors associated with domestic violence, it was found that wealth has an inverse relationship with domestic violence, meaning the richer the couples the lesser the number of cases of domestic violence. Conclusion: Higher household economic status was associated with less domestic violence in marriage and thus we recommend that communities engage in income generating projects as an indirect way of reducing domestic violence.