Date of Conferral

2-10-2025

Degree

Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)

School

Public Health

Advisor

David Anderson

Abstract

The decision-making autonomy of female intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors to make financial transactions is a stronger predictor of help-seeking behavior that is not yet fully explored. Despite the plausibility of using the mobile phone for financial transactions, it is yet to be explored as a predictor of help-seeking behavior after IPV events through digital financial inclusion. The dataset from the 2018 Nigerian Demographic Health Survey was used to explore if digital financial inclusion could predict help-seeking behavior instead of the severity of abuse among ever-partnered Nigerian female IPV survivors (aged 15 to 49 years) who use their mobile phones for financial transactions. The tenets of the health belief model were used in this quantitative cross-sectional study among randomly selected 350 ever-partnered IPV survivors. Binary logistic regression was used to predict help-seeking behavior based on digital financial inclusion as the primary predictor while controlling for women’s educational level parity with their male partners, religion, age, severity of abuse, geopolitical zone of residence, employment status, attitude toward IPV, and the male partner’s controlling behavior. Severity of abuse was the only variable that predicted help-seeking behavior. The odds of help-seeking behavior are about four times more likely among those with severe IPV experience. Results substantiate the need to target survivors who experience less severe IPV with messaging to prompt timely access to care, truncate perpetual exposure to harm, and limit poor health outcomes. Also, findings reinforce the need for alternatives to the severity of abuse as a predictor of help-seeking behavior after IPV events.

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