Repository of Research and Investigative Information

Repository of Research and Investigative Information

Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences

Daughters at risk of female genital mutilation: Examining the determinants of mothers' intentions to allow their daughters to undergo female genital mutilation

(2016) Daughters at risk of female genital mutilation: Examining the determinants of mothers' intentions to allow their daughters to undergo female genital mutilation. PLoS ONE.

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Official URL: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2....

Abstract

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is still a common practice in many countries in Africa and the Middle East. Understanding the determinants of FGM can lead to more active interventions to prevent this harmful practice. The goal of this study is to explore factors associated with FGM behavior among Iranian mothers and their daughters. Based on Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, we examined the predictive value of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and several socio-demographic variables in relation to mothers' intentions to mutilate their daughters. A paper-and-pencil survey was conducted among 300 mothers (mean age = 33.20, SD = 9.09) who had at least one daughter and who lived in Ravansar, a county in Kermanshah Province in Iran. Structural equationmodeling was used to investigate the relationships among the study variables. Our results indicate that attitude is the strongest predictor of mothers' intentions to allow their daughters to undergo FGM, followed by subjective norms. Compared to younger mothers, older mothers have more positive attitudes toward FGM, perceive themselves as having more control over their behavior and demonstrate a greater intention to allow their daughter to undergo FGM. Furthermore, we found that less educated mothers and mothers living in rural areas had more positive attitudes toward FGM and feel more social pressure to allow FGM. The model accounts for 93 percent of the variance in the mothers' intentions to allow their daughters to undergo FGM. Intervention programs that want to decrease FGM might focus primarily on converting mothers' neutral or positive feelings toward FGM into negative attitudes and on alleviating the perceived social pressure to mutilate one's daughter. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations about how to curtail mothers' intentions to allow their daughters to undergo FGM. © 2016 Pashaei et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: adult; female genital mutilation; human; Iran; Iranian (citizen); model; mother; predictive value; rural area; Theory of Planned Behavior; attitude to health; behavior; child; female; female genital mutilation; infant; mother; nuclear family; preschool child; psychological model; psychology; questionnaire; rural population; statistics and numerical data; urban population; young adult, Adult; Child; Child, Preschool; Circumcision, Female; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Infant; Intention; Iran; Models, Psychological; Mothers; Nuclear Family; Rural Population; Surveys and Questionnaires; Urban Population; Young Adult
Journal or Publication Title: PLoS ONE
Volume: 11
Number: 3
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Identification Number: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151630
ISSN: 19326203
Depositing User: مهندس جمال محمودپور
URI: http://eprints.muk.ac.ir/id/eprint/595

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