Intimate Partner Violence Prevention in Nepal

Summary

Introduction: Change Starts at Home (Change) is a multi-component social behavior change communication and community engagement strategy designed to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV), a significant public health issue in Nepal and throughout the world.

Methods and analysis: The study uses a concurrent mixed-methods design. The quantitative aspect of the evaluation is a pair-matched, repeated cross-sectional 2-armed, single-blinded cluster trial (RCT: N=36 clusters, 1440 individuals), comparing a social behavior change communication (SBCC) strategy to radio programming alone for its impact on physical and / or sexual IPV at the end of programming (12 months' post-baseline) and 6-months post the cessation of project activities (24-months post baseline). The qualitative aspects of the design include several longitudinal approaches to understand the impact of the intervention and examine mechanisms of change including in-depth interviews with participants (N=18 couples), and focus group discussions with community leaders (N=3 groups), and family members of participants (N=12 groups). Treatment effects will be estimated with generalized logistic mixed models specified to compare differences in primary outcome from baseline to follow-up, and baseline to 24-months post following intention-to-treat principles.

Conditions

• Intimate Partner Violence

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Behavior Change Communication

9-month weekly episode behavior change radio drama with interactive voice response (IVR)/short message service (SMS) listener engagement

BEHAVIORAL

Community Mobilization

Listening and discussions groups, 2 male and 2 female groups per study site meet weekly for 39 weeks and will receive training on gender equity, intimate partner violence (IPV), life skills, community mobilization, non-violent conflict resolution for listening and discussion group (LDG) facilitators to support knowledge and skill set acquisition of LDG members. There will be a joint couple's session every month to foster mutual learning and understanding in addition to community mobilization incentives led by LDGs and encouragement of family members of LGD members to listen to the radio and attend LDG sessions once every 3 months. Participants will also receive awareness raising and street theater to engage families and community members.

BEHAVIORAL

Advocacy

Training and 6-month follow up of religious/community leaders and religious leaders support community mobilization activity of local listening and discussion group (LGD).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Emory University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Cari Clark, Sc.D., M.P.H. · Emory University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-03-12

Primary Completion

2018-08-14

Completion

2018-08-14