The Impact of Domestic Gender Based Violence on the Psychological Well-Being of Men in Luwingu Township, Northern Province - Zambia

Men endure many types of violence which have a wide range of effects on them. For instance, among many other things, they are subjected to physical, emotional and psychological abuse. This study was set to assess the impact of gender based domestic violence on the psychological well-being of men in Luwingu Township in the Northern Province of Zambia. The study was guided by Transactional Analysis (TA) theory, a psychoanalytic theory developed by Eric Berne. It adopted a convergent parallel mixed-method design where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously. The target population was 90 while the sample size was 71 participants. Slovin formula was adopted to determine the sample size for the study. Convenience and purposeful sampling was used to select the sample population. To collect qualitative data, a semi-structured interview guide was administered through phone call interview recording while focus group discussion was facilitated by the research agent. Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data. Descriptive analysis was done using SPSS version 21.0 to analyze the quantitative data. The qualitative data was transcribed using verbatim and presented in narrative format. The study established that some men in Luwingu Township were subjected to a range of domestic violence in form of physical, psychological, emotional and economical which affected their self-confidence, fostering feelings of helplessness, frustration, disappointment, depression, anxiety, loneliness, marginalization, inferiority, anger and shame. The study findings also indicated that stereotyping of culturally assigned roles of men has placed them at a disadvantage making them conceal abuses to avoid losing the ‘community image of masculinity’ and ridicule from the society. The study recommended that government and private stakeholders should sensitize the community on domestic abuse on male victims and encourage men to report occurrences and a further study should be conducted to give further strategic interventions. Key words: Men, Domestic, gender based violence, Psychological Well-being