Hafez Mai Sherif, Mounir Carolin Sherif, El Zeini Laila Othman
Department of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
BMC Womens Health. 2024 Dec 2;24(1):634. doi: 10.1186/s12905-024-03465-6.
Domestic Violence is a threatening worldwide problem. Its consequences against women can be dramatic, as it negatively affects women's quality of life reflected in their general wellbeing including physical, mental, emotional and sexual health, in addition to the economic cost. Both domestic violence and its cost are multidimensional constructs that cannot be directly measured.
In this study, a latent trait model is used by applying item response theory to measure both domestic violence and its consequent cost via thirty-five observed variables. Accordingly, the study fills a gap in the literature since it is the first attempt to examine the relationship between domestic violence and its consequent cost in Egypt using latent variable modelling rather than simple descriptive statistics. Each construct is considered as a multidimensional latent variable. The overall latent trait model also estimates the relationship between domestic violence and its consequent cost. The effect of a number of socioeconomic covariates on domestic violence is examined within the model. The proposed model is fitted to data from the 2015 Egypt Economic Cost of Gender-Based Violence Survey (ECGBVS) using Mplus software.
The study shows that psychological violence is equally important in measuring domestic violence, as physical violence. The cost resulting from domestic violence relies in its measurement both on the reduced quality of life and the monetary cost endured by the violated woman and children. For socioeconomic covariates, it is shown that domestic violence is affected by women's and husband's age, educational level, and husband's occupational status.
Domestic violence is measured by summarizing four forms of violence: physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence, in a single continuous latent variable measuring "Domestic Violence". Similarly, Cost is measured by summarizing three forms of consequent cost of violence: economic cost, cost on children and cost on women's quality of life, in another a single continuous latent variable "Cost". Each of these dimensions is measured by a number of aspects, reflecting the multidimensional nature of the variables. The fitted latent trait model ensured the positive relationship between Domestic Violence and its consequent multidimensional cost.
家庭暴力是一个全球性的威胁性问题。其对女性的影响可能是巨大的，因为它会对女性的生活质量产生负面影响，体现在她们的总体幸福感上，包括身体、心理、情感和性健康，此外还包括经济成本。家庭暴力及其成本都是多维度的概念，无法直接衡量。
在本研究中，通过应用项目反应理论使用潜在特质模型，通过35个观测变量来衡量家庭暴力及其相应成本。因此，该研究填补了文献中的空白，因为这是首次尝试使用潜在变量建模而非简单描述性统计来研究埃及家庭暴力与其相应成本之间的关系。每个概念都被视为一个多维度潜在变量。总体潜在特质模型还估计了家庭暴力与其相应成本之间的关系。在模型中考察了一些社会经济协变量对家庭暴力的影响。使用Mplus软件将所提出的模型应用于2015年埃及基于性别的暴力经济成本调查（ECGBVS）的数据。
研究表明，在衡量家庭暴力方面，心理暴力与身体暴力同样重要。家庭暴力造成的成本在衡量上既依赖于生活质量的下降，也依赖于受侵害妇女和儿童所承受的货币成本。对于社会经济协变量，研究表明家庭暴力受到妇女和丈夫的年龄、教育水平以及丈夫的职业地位的影响。
家庭暴力通过将身体、心理、性和经济暴力这四种暴力形式汇总在一个衡量“家庭暴力”的单一连续潜在变量中来进行衡量。同样，成本通过将暴力的三种相应成本形式汇总在另一个单一连续潜在变量“成本”中来进行衡量，这三种形式分别是经济成本、对儿童的成本以及对妇女生活质量的成本。这些维度中的每一个都通过多个方面来衡量，反映了变量的多维度性质。拟合的潜在特质模型确保了家庭暴力与其相应的多维度成本之间的正相关关系。
