  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the important determinants
responsible for the variation in women's attitude towards intimate partner
violence (IPV). Methods: A nationally representative Bangladesh Demographic and
Health Survey 2014 data of 17,863 women is used to address the research
questions. In the study, two response variables are constructed from the five
attitude questions, and a series of individual and community-level predictors
are tested. The preliminary statistical methods employed in the study include
univariate and bivariate distributions, while the adopted statistical models
include binary logistic, ordinal logistic, mixed-effects multilevel logistic
models for each response variable, and finally, the generalized ordinal
logistic regression. Results: Statistical analyses reveal that among the
individual-level independent variables age at first marriage, respondent's
education, decision score, religion, NGO membership, access to information,
husband's education, normalized wealth score, and division indicator have
significant effects on the women's attitude towards IPV. Among the three
community-level variables, only the mean decision score is found significant in
lowering the likelihood. Conclusions: It is evident that other than religion,
NGO membership, and division indicator, the higher the value of the variable,
the lower the likelihood of justifying IPV. However, being a Muslim, NGO
member, and resident of other divisions, women are found more tolerant of IPV
from their respective counterparts. These findings suggest the government,
policymakers, practitioners, academicians, and all other stakeholders to work
on the significant determinants to divert women's wrong attitude towards IPV,
and thus help to take away this deep-rooted problem from society.
