Intimate Partner Violence and the Sexual and Reproductive Health Outcomes of Women in Ghana

Abstract

Few studies have examined the relationships between intimate partner violence (IPV) and the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of women in sub-Saharan countries in general and Ghana specifically. This study began to fill the gap by investigating whether individual- and community-level IPV influenced unwanted pregnancy and pregnancy loss among women in Ghana. Nationally representative cross-sectional data were collected from 2,289 ever-married women, and multilevel modeling was used to estimate individual- and community-level effects. At the individual level, IPV was significantly associated with unwanted pregnancy and pregnancy loss. Women with experience of both physical and sexual violence were more likely to have reported an unwanted pregnancy and a pregnancy loss. However, only those experiencing sexual violence reported unwanted pregnancies. Similarly, community-level IPV was associated with sexual health outcomes. Respondents in communities with higher levels of sexual violence were significantly more likely to have had unwanted pregnancies. The findings corroborate calls for policy makers to consider IPV a reproductive health issue. They also emphasize the need to move beyond individual-level interventions to consider structural and community contexts when addressing the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of women in Ghana.