Table 1.

Operational definitions of physical and sexual intimate partner violence and indicators most frequently used in the surveys included in this analysis

	Definition
Intimate partner* violence	A woman's self-reported experience of being subjected to one or more acts of physical or sexual violence, or both, by a current or former husband or male intimate partner since the age of 15 years†
Physical intimate partner violence	Physical intimate partner violence‡ is operationalised as acts that can physically hurt the victim, including, but not limited to: being slapped or having something thrown at you that could hurt you; being pushed or shoved; being hit with a fist or something else that could hurt; being kicked, dragged, or beaten up; being choked or burnt on purpose; or being threatened with or actually having a gun, knife, or other weapon used on you; or a combination of these acts
Sexual intimate partner violence	Sexual intimate partner violence§ is operationalised as: being physically forced to have sexual intercourse when you do not want to; having sexual intercourse out of fear for what your partner might do or through coercion; or being forced to do something sexual that you consider humiliating or degrading; or a combination of these acts
Lifetime prevalence¶ of intimate partner violence	The proportion of ever-married or ever-partnered women who reported that they had been subjected to one or more acts of physical or sexual violence, or both, by a current or former husband or male intimate partner in their lifetime (defined as since the age of 15 years)
Past year prevalence¶ of intimate partner violence (also referred to as recent or current intimate partner violence)	The proportion of ever-married or ever-partnered women who reported that they had been subjected to one or more acts of physical or sexual violence, or both, by a current or former husband or male intimate partner within the 12 months preceding the survey

^*The definition of intimate partner varies between settings and includes formal partnerships, such as marriage, as well as informal partnerships, such as cohabitating or other regular intimate partnerships. It was necessary that the denominator was inclusive of all women who could be exposed to intimate partner violence, so for the purposes of this analysis we accepted whatever definitions of partner were used in the surveys and studies that were included in this analysis, which includes current and former husbands, and current and former cohabitating and non-cohabitating male intimate partners.

^†The age of 15 years is set as the lower age in the range for the purposes of these estimates. Most surveys, including the Demographic and Health Surveys and specialised surveys on violence against women, include girls and women aged 15 years and older in the measure of intimate partner violence to capture the experiences of girls and women in settings where marriage commonly occurs among girls from the age of 15 years.

^‡The Domestic Violence Module of the Demographic and Health Surveys, the WHO multi-country study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women, and other specialised surveys on violence against women that use the WHO multi-country study survey instrument and its adaptations, draw on adapted versions of the Conflicts Tactics Scale to measure the prevalence of physical partner violence.

^§As operationalised in the Domestic Violence Module of the Demographic and Health Surveys, the WHO multi-country study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence against Women, and other specialised surveys on violence against women that use the WHO multi-country study survey instrument.

^¶Prevalence refers to the number of women who have been subjected to partner violence divided by the number of at-risk women in the study population.