Intimate Partner Violence,Mental Distress and HIV Prevention and Treatment Adherence in Southern Africa

The World Health Organization defines violence as the use of physical force,power,and

threats against a person,group or community resulting in suffering,death,psychological

damage or limited development(WHO,1996). A typology of violence proposed by the

World Health Organization includes self inflicted,interpersonal and collective categories.

Interpersonal violence principally referes to violence among family members and/or

intimate partners. In Southern Africa(and elsewhere)women are far more likely to be

affected by intimate partner violence,which often produces psychological and physical trauma

and death. There is an increasing amount of data suggesting that intimate partner violence

(IPV)which is gender based(GBV)and the mental stress and trauma associated with it,is both

a cause and an outcome of HIV infection(CDC,2014). Recent studies in Kenya confirm that

IPV limits womens ability to distribute self HIV tests to males(Shaeffer et.al.,2017)and adherence

to PrEP(Roberts et.a.,2017). A third investigation concluded that IPV was an important problem

of HIV infected women in Kenya,but we can not expect that reductions in intimate partner violence

will be associated with improved ART aderence(Wilson et. al.2017) This presentation will present an

overview of the recent findings on intimate partner violence,mental distress and HIV prevention and

treatment adherence with a focus on Southern Africa. Further,it will present a proposal for a multi-national

study of the same topics in Malawi,Botswana and South Africa discussing issues of sampling and the use of

quantitative and qualitative research methods.