Primary and secondary outcomes for the trial
| Number of items and origins | Scaling | Alpha | Hypothesised direction | |
| Primary outcomes | ||||
| Past year experience of physical IPV among currently married women | Five items ask about married women’s experience of physical IPV (specifically: being slapped; pushed or shoved; hit; kicked, dragged, or choked or burnt; threatened to, or actually used a gun, knife or other weapon). The scale is based on the WHO’s multicountry study of IPV41 | A positive response to one or more items coded as yes | NA | Decrease |
| Past year experience of severe physical IPV among currently married women | Same scale as above. Severe physical IPV is defined as experiencing more than one item of the five, or experiencing any one item more than once (ie, responding few, or many), creating a dichotomous measure equivalent to more than once experiencing physical IPV. This follows analyses suggesting significantly greater health impacts for those experiencing two or more IPV experiences27 | Two or more items responded to as ‘once’ or responding to any single item as ‘few’, or ‘many’ | NA | Decrease |
| Women’s past week depressive symptoms | Depressive symptoms are assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D), comprising 20 items asking about depressive symptoms in the past week42 | Mean score created; higher mean’s more depressive symptoms | 0.90 | Decrease |
| Secondary outcomes | ||||
| Violence and gender attitudes and practices | ||||
| Past year emotional IPV among currently married women | Seven items ask about experiences of emotional abuse by the husband | A positive response to one or more items coded as yes | NA | Decrease |
| Perceptions of husband cruelty among currently married women | Five items ask about married women’s perceptions of her husband and his attitudes and relationship towards her | Mean score: higher scores indicate more cruelty | 0.88 | Decrease |
| Women’s gender attitudes | This scale was developed locally from discussions with Afghans before being tested in Pakistan. A series of 11 questions ask about gender attitudes that individual women hold | Mean score; higher score indicates less gender-equitable attitudes | 0.87 | Decrease |
| Married women’s participation in household decision-making | Five items are asked about women’s ability to participate in household decisions, based on the WHO Multi-Country Study on Domestic Violence41 | Mean score; higher scores indicate more participation | 0.77 | Increase |
| Women’s mobility | Single item asking whether a woman had travelled outside of the province, or country, in the past year | Binary of yes/no | NA | Increase |
| Mother-in-law and sibling abuse | Two items: a single item assesses whether mother-in-laws have hit the woman in the past 12 months and another item assesses whether siblings have hit the woman in the past 12 months, an affirmative response to either item would indicate abuse | A positive response to one or both items coded as yes | NA | Decrease |
| Perceptions of mother-in-law cruelty | For married women who currently live with their mothers-in-law, six items ask about their relationship and the mother-in-law’s attitudes towards her | Mean score: higher scores indicate more cruelty | 0.84 | Decrease |
| Livelihoods | ||||
| Household food insecurity in past 4 weeks | Three items comprising the Household Hunger Scale, developed for global use and comparability43 | Mean score created; higher indicates more food insecurity | 0.94 | Decrease |
| Women’s monthly income | A single item asks about earnings in the past month | Mean | NA | Increase |
| Women’s total savings | A single item asks women the total value that they have in savings | Mean | NA | Increase |
| Financial shock resilience | One item asks about ability to mobilise money in an emergency. This measure was developed for use in South Africa and has been used in Asia | Recoded into binary of very or fairly easy and somewhat difficult or very difficult | NA | Decrease |
| Mental health | ||||
| Life satisfaction | Life satisfaction is assessed using four items derived from the Satisfaction With Life Scale.44 This has been used across South Asia45 | Mean; higher means less satisfied | 0.90 | Decrease |
IPV, intimate partner violence; NA, not available.