Knowledge, attitude and health care practices for gender-based violence cases in Yangon, Myanmar

Abstract

Gender-based violence has negative impact on physical, psychological and social wellbeing of the survivor. The initial response can lessen the magnitude of the effect and thus the health care sector’s readiness to response GBV cases is important. Hence, a study to explore the knowledge, attitude and practice level regarding GBV response among health care personnel was conducted.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in 48 public hospitals in Yangon, Myanmar during April and May 2019 involving 398 health care personnel (doctors and nurses). The measurement tool is self-administered structured questionnaires for demographic assessment, knowledge, attitude, supportive environmental factors and practice. Analysis of the variables was done using univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis at 95% confidence level. Ethical approval from Chulalongkorn University was obtained.

A total 398 participants (mean of age 35.01±8.265, mean of working experience 9.91±6.82), 86.2% accounting for female involved in this study. Most of the participants have moderate knowledge (66.1%) and attitude (73.9%) level. More than a half (54.3%) have the moderate level of supportive environmental factors. Among them, 0nly 12.8% have experienced practice and 87.2% have never experienced GBV management. Among those who have ever managed GBV cases, 29.4% have the high practice level, more than a half 54.9% have moderate and 15.7% have poor practice level. From the chi square tests, age, education (diploma, bachelor or master), workplace (the level of the hospital), working position (doctor/nurse, senior/junior), the level of knowledge, the completeness of GBV response training, STIs management training, multidisciplinary teamwork training and communication skills training are found to be associated with the level of practice on GBV response. And then from the binary logistic regression, the study found out that the health care personnel who got the diploma degree tend to do less practice then the higher education level, bachelor degree (OR=3.768, CI=1.854-7.659, p<0.001). The participants who are working in regional hospitals tend to have 69.6% less practice than those working in station hospitals. The medical officers and senior medical officers are found to have more practices than the junior nurses. Like that, the participants who already attended the GBV response training and STI management training had a better practice than who have not.

It is suggested that in order to raise the readiness for GBV response, the health care personnel of various working position should be trained for GBV response and their knowledge regarding GBV should be improved through specific trainings.