Impacts of COVID-19 on family violence in Thailand: prevalence and factor-influencers

Abstract

Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic situation invaded our society. As a result, rising unemployment, insufficient household income, stress, and women and child health in the family. The study aimed to explore family violence and find the factors influencing family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. The study aimed to explore family violence and find the factors influencing family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. Methods: This study used a mixed-method approach quantitative questionnaire followed up by qualitative interviews. A cross-sectional design was used to survey family violence among 1,285 women aged 15 years and over who lived with them and were recruited by stratified sampling. The family violence developed questionnaire used had a Cronbach alpha of 0.67 and inter-raters Kappa coefficient of 1.00. In addition, a descriptive qualitative instrument was employed to analyze the data sets from four focus group interviews with 32 staff from agencies working with family violence. The focus group questions related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on family violence were developed based on researchers’ consensus and researchers independently analyzed data using content analysis Results: The majority of participants were 45 years old (48%), married (61.1%), living in single-family (52.5%) settings, had lost their job (64.4%), and had moderate to severe economic constraints (37.8%, 40.6%, respectively). The prevalence of family violence was 42.2%. The violent behavior was primarily physical. Family income, stress, and substance abuse were associated with family violence. Findings from the qualitative interviews correlated with this date. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic affected families in terms of family violence. Women faced family violence behaviors, including psychological and physical violence, as well as sexual abuse which was associated with family income, economic status, stress, and substance abuse. Future interventions should address the issues of financial support and stress reduction.