O-10 Women’s attitudes towards domestic violence in Guyana: A time trend analysis.

Methods: Data from three nationally representative surveys conducted from 2009 to 2019 were evaluated. The prevalence of women who believed a husband was justified in beating his wife if she: goes out without telling him, neglects the children, argues with him, refuses sex with him, and burns the food were the main indicators we analyzed. We stratified the analyses by geographic location, ethnicity, and wealth quintile index. We calculated the slope index of inequality and the concentration index of inequality to - tic violence over time. We estimated the average absolute annual change of each outcome using a weighted variance regression.

Results: The overall prevalence of women who believed a husband was justified in beating his wife for any of the five reasons declined from 16.3% (95% CI: 15.8-16.7) in 2009 to 10.8% (95% CI: 9.1-11.2) in 2019. This equated to an average annual reducton of -0.53% (p=0.004), a significant downward trend. Important differences were noted between subgroups, with the poorest women and those living in rural areas showing the greatest disparities. The slope index of inequality for the combination of the five reasons decreased from -20.02 in 2009 to -14.28 in 2019. The concentration index remained relatively constant over time.

Conclusion: Guyana experienced diminishing prevalence and inequalities among various subgroups in terms of women’s attitudes justifying domestic violence. Nonetheless, justification of domestic violence remains high and additional efforts are needed to reach rural and economically disadvantaged women.