Variability and validity of intimate partner violence reporting by couples in Tanzania

In recent years, major global institutions have amplified their efforts to address intimate partner violence (IPV) against women—a global health and human rights violation affecting 15–71% of reproductive aged women over their lifetimes. Still, some scholars remain concerned about the validity of instruments used for IPV assessment in population-based studies. In this paper, we conducted two validation analyses using novel data from 450 women-men dyads across nine villages in Northern Tanzania. First, we examined the level of inter-partner agreement in reporting of men’s physical, sexual, emotional and economic IPV against women in the last three and twelve months prior to the survey, ever in the relationship, and during pregnancy. Second, we conducted a convergent validity analysis to compare the relative efficacy of men’s self-reports of perpetration and women’s of victimization as a valid indicator of IPV against Tanzanian women using logistic regression models with village-level clustered errors. We found that, for every violence type across the recall periods of the last three months, the last twelve months and ever in the relationship, at least one in three couples disagreed about IPV occurrences in the relationship. Couples’ agreement about physical, sexual and economic IPV during pregnancy was high with 86–93% of couples reporting concordantly. Also, men’s self-reported perpetration had statistically significant associations with at least as many validated risk factors as had women’s self-reported victimization. This finding suggests that men’s self-reports are at least as valid as women’s as an indicator of IPV against women in Northern Tanzania. We recommend more validation studies are conducted in low-income countries, and that data on relationship factors affecting IPV reports and reporting are made available along with data on IPV occurrences.