Abstract
INTRODUCTION: During the novel COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide limited people's movements in what became known as lockdowns to contain the spread of infection. Uganda experienced one of Africa's strictest, longest, and most widespread lockdowns. In this paper, we examine how the novel COVID-19 pandemic and government response to address it impacted intimate partner violence (IPV) among men and women in two diverse districts in central Uganda. METHODOLOGY: A household survey was conducted in Luwero and Mukono districts among 1680 respondents from 84 villages from October 25th, 2021, to December 3rd, 2021. Data were collected using standardized structured questionnaires adapted from UN guidelines for producing statistics on violence in women. Outcome variables were lifetime and current (measured as incidents in the past 12 months) prevalence of IPV and whether there was reported increase during the COVID-19 lockdown, assessed by several items under emotional, socio-economic, physical and sexual violence and analyzed as individual items or derived composite variables. RESULTS: The lifetime prevalence of IPV was 55.4%, higher among women compared to men (57.9% vs. 47.4%, p < 0.001). The current prevalence of IPV was 31.0% (497/1603), higher among women than men but the difference did not reach statistical significance (32.2% vs. 27.3%, p = 0.071). Of these, 73.0% (363/497) reported that the COVID-19 lockdown worsened their IPV experiences, which was higher among women than men (74.7% vs. 67.0%,) p = 0.113) but not statistically significant. At multivariable analysis, the reported increase in IPV during the COVID-19 lockdown was significantly lower in participants with at least a diploma education, in subsistence farming or self-employed. While emotional violence was the most prevalent across both genders, socioeconomic violence was reported to have increased most during the lockdown. Only 41.9% of those who experienced violence sought help, and the majority sought help from non-formal mechanisms like family members. CONCLUSION: While IPV was more likely to be experienced by women than men, in almost all cases, those of both genders who had experienced IPV reported that it had gotten worse during the lockdowns. Pandemic preparedness and government responses during future pandemics must consider how lockdowns can create unintended negative consequences, including exacerbating IPV.