Dataset Information

Gender Inequality Prevents Abused Women from Seeking Care Despite Protection Given in Gender-Based Violence Legislation: A Qualitative Study from Rwanda.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Despite its burden on a person's life, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is known to be poorly recognised and managed in most countries and communities. This study aimed to explore health care professionals' experiences of the health care seeking processes of women exposed to intimate partner violence in Rwanda.

Methods

Six focus group discussions were conducted in three district hospitals and three mental health units in Rwanda. A sample of 43 health care professionals with various professions and length of work experience, who regularly took care of patients subjected to IPV, was selected for focus group discussions. The analysis was performed using qualitative content analysis.

Results

The theme "Gendered norms and values defeat the violence legislation in women's health care seeking when women are abused" expressed the health care professionals' experiences of the double-faced situation which women exposed to IPV met in their help seeking process. Positive initiatives to protect women were identified, but the potential for abused women to seek help and support was reduced because of poverty, gender inequality with prevailing strong norms of male superiority, and the tendency to keep abuse as a private family matter.

Conclusion

Legislative measures have been instituted to protect women from abuse. Still many Rwandan women do not benefit from these efforts. The role of the health care services needs to be reinforced as an important and available resource for help and support for abused women but further legislative changes are also needed. Initiatives to further improve gender equality, and institutionalised collaboration between different sectors in society would contribute to protecting women from IPV.

SUBMITTER: Umubyeyi A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4859471 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Gender Inequality Prevents Abused Women from Seeking Care Despite Protection Given in Gender-Based Violence Legislation: A Qualitative Study from Rwanda.

Umubyeyi Aline A Persson Margareta M Mogren Ingrid I Krantz Gunilla G

PloS one 20160506 5

<h4>Objective</h4>Despite its burden on a person's life, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is known to be poorly recognised and managed in most countries and communities. This study aimed to explore health care professionals' experiences of the health care seeking processes of women exposed to intimate partner violence in Rwanda.<h4>Methods</h4>Six focus group discussions were conducted in three district hospitals and three mental health units in Rwanda. A sample of 43 health care professionals wi ...[more]

PMID: 27152680

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Project description:Ensuring equal access to care and providing financial risk protection are at the center of the global health agenda. While Rwanda has made impressive progress in improving health outcomes, inequalities in medical care utilization and household catastrophic health spending (HCHS) between the impoverished and non-impoverished populations persist. Decomposing inequalities will help us understand the factors contributing to inequalities and design effective policy instruments in reducing inequalities. This study aims to decompose the inequalities in medical care utilization among those reporting illnesses and HCHS between the poverty and non-poverty groups in Rwanda.Using the 2005 and 2010 nationally representative Integrated Living Conditions Surveys, our analysis focuses on measuring contributions to inequalities from poverty status and other sources. We conducted multivariate logistic regression analysis to obtain poverty's contribution to inequalities by controlling for all observed covariates. We used multivariate nonlinear decomposition method with logistic regression models to partition the relative and absolute contributions from other sources to inequalities due to compositional or response effects.Poverty status accounted for the majority of inequalities in medical care utilization (absolute contribution 0.093 in 2005 and 0.093 in 2010) and HCHS (absolute contribution 0.070 in 2005 and 0.032 in 2010). Health insurance status (absolute contribution 0.0076 in 2005 and 0.0246 in 2010) and travel time to health centers (absolute contribution 0.0025 in 2005 and 0.0014 in 2010) were significant contributors to inequality in medical care utilization. Health insurance status (absolute contribution 0.0021 in 2005 and 0.0011 in 2010), having under-five children (absolute contribution 0.0012 in 2005 and 0.0011 in 2010), and having disabled family members (absolute contribution 0.0002 in 2005 and 0.0001 in 2010) were significant contributors to inequality in HCHS. Between 2005 and 2010, the main sources of the inequalities remained unchanged.Expanding insurance coverage and reducing travel time to health facilities for those living in poverty could be used as policy instruments to mitigate inequalities in medical care utilization and HCHS between the poverty and non-poverty groups.

Dataset Information

Gender Inequality Prevents Abused Women from Seeking Care Despite Protection Given in Gender-Based Violence Legislation: A Qualitative Study from Rwanda.

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Gender Inequality Prevents Abused Women from Seeking Care Despite Protection Given in Gender-Based Violence Legislation: A Qualitative Study from Rwanda.

Similar Datasets

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