Spousal violence and health care utilization for sick children in Nigeria

Sulaimon Adedokun, Obafemi Awolowo University

The study examined the association between spousal violence against women and medical treatment utilization for sick children in Nigeria The data were extracted from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 2013 which is a cross-sectional survey that involved 19,397 married women with at least a child within the last five years. The data were analysed using Chi-Square test. The study revealed that close to half of the women had no education, 65% lived in the rural area and 46% came from household with poor wealth index. While 19% experienced emotional violence, 14% experienced physical violence. About 72% of those who experienced emotional violence never sought medical treatment for their children who had diarrhea and 73% of those who suffered physical violence did not seek medical care for their children with this ailment. Emotional and physical violence are significantly associated with health care seeking for children with fever or cough (p<0.05) as 72% of women who experienced emotional violence and 74% of those who experienced physical violence never sought medical treatment for their children. The findings showed that spousal violence is a significant contributor to low health care utilization for sick children which could lead to high child mortality. Efforts at reducing the incidence of spousal violence should involve family health education programmes at community level that would involve men and women.