PREVALENCE AND DETERMINANTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN IN PORT HARCOURT METROPOLIS, RIVERS STATE

The study investigated prevalence and determinants of domestic violence against men in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. Five research questions and four null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study consisted of 2,344,000 adults in the area. Multistage sampling technique was used to select a sample of 440 respondents for the study. A self-designed questionnaire titled “Prevalence and Determinants of Domestic Violence among Men Questionnaire’’ (PDDVMQ) was used for data collection. Face and content validation were done by experts in the department of Human Kinetics, Health and Safety Education. The instrument had a reliability coefficient of r=0.70 for partners self-defence, r=0.72 for economical factor, =0.79 for feminism, r=0.74 infidelity, r=0.71 for prevalence of domestic violence. The research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation while the null hypotheses were analyzed using simple regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that partners’ self-defense, economic factors, feminism, infidelity acted as a determinant of domestic violence against men in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. That there was high prevalence rate (79%) of domestic violence against men in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. It was further revealed that there was significant relationship between partners’ self-defense (t = 6.000; p=0.00 < 0.05), economic factors (t = 9.622; p=0.00 < 0.05), feminism (t = 6.418; p=0.00 < 0.05), infidelity (t = 9.001; p=0.00 < 0.05) and domestic violence against men in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Rivers State. It was recommended among others that; International NGOs should be strengthened to carryout campaigns on attitudinal change in the larger society so that masculinity identities which hinder male victims from exposing violence against them could be minimized and in turn get health care service to help minimize the negative health impact from such abuses.