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Preventing intimate partner violence: Impact Evaluation of a couples training for IPV prevention in Eastern Rwanda.

Last registered on June 30, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Preventing intimate partner violence: Impact Evaluation of a couples training for IPV prevention in Eastern Rwanda.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002282
Initial registration date
June 28, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 28, 2017, 4:49 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
June 30, 2017, 4:36 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
World-Bank

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
World Bank

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2017-08-15
End date
2018-10-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
It is estimated that one in three women experiences intimate partner violence (IPV) in her lifetime, and that social norms about the roles of women and men are a contributing factor to IPV. The objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of a couples-based intervention on the prevention of intimate partner violence in Rwanda’s Eastern Province. The study will be conducted by the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab in collaboration with the Government of Rwanda’s Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF). The intervention evaluated is a program informed by other gender-based violence prevention programs including SASA! in Uganda and Indashyikirwa in Rwanda, and will be implemented by MIGEPROF, CARE and local NGOs. The program seeks volunteer couples who are existing members of village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) to participate in 22 weekly discussion group sessions led by a trained local facilitator. The curriculum encourages men and women to reflect on gender roles and concepts of masculinity and femininity, to build communication skills to resolve conflict peacefully, and to understand ways to reduce and prevent intimate partner violence in their households and communities.

The study is a cluster randomized control trial, with randomization at three levels: village, VSLA group, and couple. In the 128 treated villages, 2 VSLAs will be selected for treatment, and within each of these VSLAs, 5 self-selected married couples will be selected for treatment. Control individuals in control villages and VSLAs will not receive any intervention.

Key outcomes examined include: (i) experience of past year physical, sexual and psychological violence reported by women; (ii) participant’s self-reported gender attitudes and behaviors, and conflict management skills; (iii) power sharing and communication within the couple; (iv) individual and household economic outcomes; and (v) diffusion and reinforcement effects of the intervention on individuals in the village social network.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Alik-Lagrange, Arthur et al. 2017. "Preventing intimate partner violence: Impact Evaluation of a couples training for IPV prevention in Eastern Rwanda.." AEA RCT Registry. June 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2282-3.0
Former Citation
Alik-Lagrange, Arthur et al. 2017. "Preventing intimate partner violence: Impact Evaluation of a couples training for IPV prevention in Eastern Rwanda.." AEA RCT Registry. June 30. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2282/history/19099
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The approach of the couples training intervention aims to engage female and male members of saving groups as agents of change in their communities to end violence against women and promote gender equality through structured, weekly discussions. The evidence-based approach is informed by several other interventions that have had positive results in Sub-Saharan Africa. This intervention specifically tests the impact of the couples training program on IPV, the extent of spillovers within and between saving groups, and potential mechanisms for the intervention.

The curriculum encourages married male and female volunteers to reflect on gender roles, to build communication skills to resolve conflict peacefully, and to understand how they can reduce and prevent intimate partner violence in their households and communities. The approach follows a structured series of facilitated discussions designed to explore existing understandings of masculinity and femininity, and create more positive models of what it means to be a ‘good’ man, promoting self-reflection and encouraging participants to analyze and change men's power and privilege.

The couples’ discussion group incorporates insights from cognitive behavioral theory, social norms theory and the ‘ecological model’ of violence which recognizes that intimate partner violence results from an interplay of factors that operate at multiple levels of society.
Intervention Start Date
2017-10-01
Intervention End Date
2018-01-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Women's experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the past 12 months; Attitudes on acceptability of IPV (among all women; all men); Attitudes on acceptability of a woman refusing to have sex (among all women; all men); Use of gender equitable behaviors in the home and in relationship (among all women, all men);
Attitudes towards gender equitable/inequitable social norms (among all women, all men);
Decision-making and communication around family planning (among all women, all
men); Power sharing and decision-making around income generating activities and use
of income (among all women, all men); Conflict and hostility management skills (among
all men); Economic participation and income (all women; all men); Household cooperation (all women; all men); Community-wide norms about gender roles and the acceptability of violence (all women; all men).
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study is a cluster randomized control trial. In 8 treatment sectors:
- 64 villages will be randomly selected for treatment, and within treated villages, a total of 128 VSLAs (2/village) will be selected for treatment. Across all treated villages, 640 self-selected couples (5/VSLA) will be selected for treatment. 320 control couples in these 64 treated villages will be surveyed in order to identify spillovers.
- 64 villages will be randomly selected for being control, in these 64 control villages, 960 couples are surveyed, who applied but were not selected because their village was not selected.

Depending on data availability, the villages are matched into 64 pairs on key socio-demographic characteristics and, within each pair, sites are randomly allocated to treatment or control status. Eligible VSLAs and couples will be assigned treatment or control status through a public lottery after baseline is conducted. Within each treatment sector, villages are eligible if they have a minimum of 3 eligible VSLAs, and VSLAs are eligible if they have at least 10 eligible members. VSLA members are eligible for the intervention and the study if they are married or cohabiting with a partner, at least 18 years old, and an existing member of a VSLA. After villages are selected on a computer using a randomization code, VSLAs will then be selected using a public lottery, and in case of oversubscription, the 5 VSLA-member couple volunteers will also be selected through a public lottery. At the time of recruitment and baseline, the participants do not know their own treatment status, nor that of their village or VSLA.

Baseline and follow-up surveys are conducted with all participating couples, village leaders, VSLA leaders, and several randomly selected community members. Differences in outcomes at endline will be attributed to the intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
village level randomization => done in office
VSLA and individual level randomization => public lotteries
Randomization Unit
village, VSLA, individual (couples)
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
128 villages (64 treatment); 384 VSLAs (128 treatment - 64 control in treatment villages - 192 in control villages)
Sample size: planned number of observations
3000 men, 3000 women, 256 village leaders, 400 community members; 384 VSLA leaders
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
640 men and 640 women in the treatment arm
2360 men and 2360 women in the control arm
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Power calculation: minimum detectable effect at high and low ICC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- High ICC (α=0.5) no attrition at endline Average cluster size = 12 clusters per arm = 64 IPV in past 12 months at baseline / Min Detectable Decrease / Min Detectable Increase 0.30 / 50% / 59% 0.20 / 62% / 81% 0.10 / 84% / 135% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Low ICC (α=0.05) no attrition at endline Average cluster size=12 clusters per arm=64 IPV in past 12 months at baseline / Min Detectable Decrease / Min Detectable Increase 0.30 / 47% / 60% 0.20 / 33% / 38% 0.10 / 47% / 60% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- High ICC (α=0.5) 20% attrition at endline (average cluster size 12 → 9) Average cluster size=12 clusters per arm=64 IPV in past 12 months at baseline / Min Detectable Decrease / Min Detectable Increase 0.30 / 51% / 59% 0.20 / 63% / 82% 0.10 / 85% / 137% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Low ICC (α=0.05) no attrition at endline Average cluster size=12 clusters per arm=64 IPV in past 12 months at baseline / Min Detectable Decrease / Min Detectable Increase 0.30 / 29% / 31% 0.20 / 36% / 42% 0.10 / 51% / 67% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
National Institute of Statistics Rwanda - research visa, University of Oxford Central University Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2017-04-06
IRB Approval Number
Research Ethics Approval (CUREC 2) Ref No: R50347/RE001

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials