Association between intimate partner violence and nutritional status among Indian women: a latent class analysis approach

Background Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an unabating public health issue that has numerous negative repercussions for women’s health. Its detrimental impact on women’s nutritional outcomes has been documented in a few studies from low- and middle-income countries; however, there is a lack of granular understanding in terms of the typology of IPV experiences and their association with nutritional outcomes. This study explores the distinct classes of IPV experience among women in India and examines how these classes are associated with their nutritional outcomes. Methods Using data of 60,622 ever-married women aged 15–49 years from the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), latent class analysis (LCA) was performed to identify distinct groups of women based on their IPV experiences. BMI was used to assess women’s nutritional status, and it was classified as: <18.5 kg/m2 (underweight), 18.5–24.9 kg/m2 (normal) and ≥ 25.0 kg/m2 (overweight). Further, multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the odds of being underweight or overweight by latent classes of IPV experiences. Results LCA model identified four distinct IPV experience groups of women: Low Physical and Low Sexual IPV (LPLS-IPV) class (72%); High Physical and Low Sexual IPV (HPLS-IPV) (12.5%); High Sexual and Low Physical IPV (HSLP-IPV) (12%); and High Physical and High Sexual (HPHS-IPV) class (3.5%). The likelihood of being underweight was higher among women in the HPHS-IPV class (aOR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.08–1.44), followed by those in the HPLS-IPV class (aOR: 1.11, 95% CI: 1.04–1.20). Conclusion The latent class groups found that high physical IPV experiences were associated with women’s nutritional outcomes. The experiences of women having both high physical and sexual violence affect women’s nutritional outcomes to a greater extent and they are more likely to be undernourished.