Intimate partner violence against married rural-to-urban migrant workers in eastern China: prevalence, patterns, and associated factors

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health issue among married rural-to-urban migrant workers, the largest group of internal migrants in China. This study aims to explore the prevalence, patterns and associated factors of intimate partner violence against married rural-to-urban migrant workers in eastern China. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Zhejiang province in China between July 2015 and April 2016, and a total of 1,744 married rural-to-urban migrant workers ultimately took part in the study. Conflict Tactics Scales and several short demographic questions were applied. Data were principally analyzed with logistic regression. RESULTS: The majority of married rural-to-urban migrant workers were middle-aged couples with a low education level and a relatively long-term duration of migration in fixed migrant cities. Nearly 45% of married rural-to-urban migrant workers were experienced at least one incident of intimate partner violence during the past 12 months. The joint occurrence of multiple forms of violence is the most commonly reported features of intimate partner violence, especially three overlapping patterns of intimate partner violence. Some individual (education and age), relationship (marital satisfaction, premarital sex and extramarital affairs) and social (duration of migration and number of migratory cities) factors of the respondents, were negatively or positively associated with intimate partner violence against married rural-to-urban migrant workers. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that one out of two married rural-to-urban migrant workers experienced at least one incident of intimate partner violence during the past 12 months in China. Accordingly, there is an obvious demand of intervention and treatment activities to prevent and reduce the occurrence of intimate partner violence among the millions of migrant workers in China. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3896-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.