Physical Violence clinical trials

Impact Assessment of the Rural Response System to Reduce Violence Against Women in Ghana

AIM: To assess the community level impact of the Gender Centre's Rural Response System (RRS) in reducing violence against women (VAW) in Ghana. METHODS: Design: An unmatched cluster randomised controlled trial with two arms i) Intervention arm- Receive Gender Centre's RRS /COMBAT package for communities as well as state agencies. Control arm - No intervention. Qualitative component Setting: Rural and urban communities in the Central Region of Ghana. i). Rural and urban communities in four (4) Districts located in the Central Region of Ghana. Two districts are along the Coast (Abura and Komenda) while the other two (Agona and Upper Denkyira) are inland districts. ii). State Agencies (DOVVSU/Police, CHRAJ, Social Welfare, and Health Services). Interventions: Carried out in two Districts - Agona district and Komenda district. Workings of the intervention arm will be facilitated by the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre in Ghana. Sample size: A total of 3280 adults (1640 women and 1640 men) from 20 clusters per trial arm (approximately 82 households per cluster) will be recruited at baseline and again at post-intervention survey. Sampling format will be a community survey with independent samples design (i.e. in each community, the people surveyed at baseline may not necessarily be the same people who are surveyed at post intervention. Clusters refer to the selected localities and their participating communities in each district. Evaluation design: Pre-test all study participants with a standardized instrument then introduce the independent variable (intervention) to the experimental group while withholding it from the control group. After 24 months of intervention, post-test both groups with the same instrument and under the same conditions as the pretest (baseline). Compare the amount of change in dependent variable for both experimental and control groups. Data analysis: The data will be analysed by intention to treat. The past 12 months prevalence of IPV will be compared between arms in the study.