Binge-drinking and household role's associations with prevalence of domestic violence: findings from the Thailand smoking and drinking behaviour survey 2017.

introductionAlcohol consumption is associated with domestic violence, but the extent that binge-drinking and the household role of drinkers strengthens this association is unknown. We assessed the extent that binge-drinking behavior and the household role of the drinker were associated with alcohol-related domestic violence.

methodsWe analyzed data from a nationally-representative census survey of 36,364 households in Thailand, of whom 17,759 households had one or more drinkers (n = 17,759 households). We aggregated the interview data of individuals living in the same households to create household-level attributes. We used multivariate log-binomial regression analyses to calculate prevalence ratios (PR) and measure the association between drinking behavior of household members and reported domestic violence during the previous 12 months.

resultsAmong households with one current drinker, households with a binge-drinker had higher prevalence of reported domestic violence than households where the drinker did not binge (Adjusted PR = 7.13; 95% CI = 4.79, 10.61), and households where the female head drank had significantly lower domestic violence compared to households where the male head drank (Adjusted PR = 0.12; 95% CI = 0.04, 0.33). Among households with two or more drinkers, households with one and two or more binge-drinkers had significantly higher prevalence of domestic violence compared to households with no binge-drinker (Adjusted PR = 2.86; 95% CI = 1.68, 4.86; and Adjusted PR = 4.62; 95% CI = 2.78, 7.67, respectively).

conclusionsBinge-drinking and household role of the drinker were associated with domestic violence at the household level. However, the study methods did not allow for disentangling of the stated associations, which limited the contribution of the study beyond its reported findings.