Prevalence and correlates of emotional violence among Ghanaian women

Eugene K. M. Darteh, University of Cape Coast
Joshua Amo-Adjei, University of Cape Coast

We investigated incidence of emotional violence, a genre of intimate partner violence (IPV) among Ghanaian women in the reproductive period. The thrust of the paper was premised on assessing applicability of the various propositions on IPV, focusing on emotional violence, a less investigated phenomenon in the IPV literature. The study draws on raw data from Ghana Demographic Survey of 2008. Correlation and logistic regression (reporting odds ratio) were used to test the validity of some of the propositions the literature reveals on IPV. Correlation results revealed positive and significant association between marital status and partner’s alcohol consumption behaviour on one hand and emotional violence experiences. Women’s earning, settlement, religion and ethnicity showed negative association between emotional abuse experiences. In the second phase of the analysis, cohabitation, unemployment in the past year and women whose partners got drunk often were significantly more prone to emotional abuse by their partners.