Factors Associated with Poor Mental Health Due to Intimate Partner Violence among Fishermen’s Wives in Bangladesh

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health concern in the world, especially in the developing world. Bangladesh, a developing country, has the highest rate of IPV among the South Asian countries. We designed this study to examine survey data from a fishing community in Cox’s Bazar district in Bangladesh, aiming to investigate the factors associated with the poor mental health conditions of women who experienced IPV.Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design. The target population included fishermen’s wives within the reproductive age group (15-49 years) who experienced IPV. A convenient sampling procedure selected 120 fishermen’s wives from three fishers’ villages of Cox’s Bazar district in 2022. We assessed the respondents’ mental health conditions using the Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). We analyzed the data using Fisher’s exact test, independent t-test, and binary logistic regression in SPSS version 26.Results: The respondents reported the prevalence of physical and psychological abuse by their current intimate partners in the last year. The findings indicated that their intimate partners physically abused 69.2% of respondents and psychologically abused 86.7% of them in the past year. The majority of the respondents (80%, n=96) had poor mental health (SRQ≥7). The results from binary logistic regression models demonstrated that the poor mental health of respondents was associated with several factors, including respondents’ age (P=0.045), education (P=0.001), personal income (P=0.002), consumption of betel leaf/smokeless tobacco (P=0.032), not being a member of a non-governmental organization (NGO) (P=0.023), a husband’s gambling habit (P=0.05), a history of psychological abuse (P=0.001), and those who seek assistance during crisis times (P=0.027).Conclusions: The study findings can assist policymakers and fisheries practitioners in formulating policies and programs to reduce IPV in fisheries communities, thereby ensuring that no one is left behind.