Psychological Consequences of Domestic Violence on Women in Karnali Province, Nepal

Abstract

Domestic violence (DV) against women is a major public health and human rights problem in Nepal, with especially high structural vulnerability in the remote, mountainous Karnali Province. Beyond physical injury, exposure to intimate partner and family violence carries profound and lasting psychological consequences. This paper synthesizes empirical and qualitative evidence from Nepal and comparable South Asian contexts to describe the psychological outcomes associated with DV and to propose a mixed-methods research design for Karnali Province. A narrative synthesis of national survey data, provincial human rights monitoring reports, and peer-reviewed literature on intimate partner violence (IPV) and mental health was conducted, followed by the design of a cross-sectional, mixed-methods study protocol. National evidence indicates that roughly one in four ever-partnered Nepali women experience some form of IPV in their lifetime, and this exposure is consistently associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideation, and, in cases involving head trauma, longer-term cognitive impairment. Provincial monitoring reports suggest that Karnali carries a disproportionate share of reported DV incidents relative to its health-service capacity, while help-seeking remains low. DV constitutes a substantial, under-documented mental-health burden for women in Karnali Province.