Sexual and reproductive health challenges of female-headed households, A qualitative study

 Taghizadeh Z^*, Khoshnam Rad M.

Background: Females with irresponsible husbands are a subset of female-headed families that are married and have their spouse living with them, but because of spouse's ineffective roles, they  inevitably are head of families and shoulder a heavy load in their life. Unfortunately, most of  problems of these women often were neglected. Although sexual issues are one of the important dimensions of reproductive health, less attention has been paid to it. This study aimed to provide an in-depth understanding of their sexual challenges.

 Methods: This study was done through the qualitative method with content analysis approach by participation of 16 married females that have irresponsible spouses and deep interviews in a 7 months period in 2019. To increase the reliability of data, sampling was done to include maximum diversity and continue until saturation. Women were profoundly interviewed individually. Data were collected and recorded and were encoded, then transcript and analyzed.

Results: Females recruited in this study were of different socioeconomic levels. On average they have been lived 5 years with their husbands. Five key themes were extracted including unmet sexual needs, forced or unwanted sex, concern about sexually transmitted diseases (STD), unrestrained sexual activity and irresponsibility of husbands, and sexual abuse from others under the guise of support.

Conclusion: From the results, it could be concluded that not only the needs of these women not met, but also these women's life are associated with worry, threats, and discrimination. This requires serious measures to be taken by the authorities and policymakers.

Keywords: Female-headed households, Challenges of sexual health, Reproductive health, Qualitative study