Medical and social problems among women-headed families in Baghdad

Abstract EN

Background : Women-headed families tend to be the most marginalized and poverty prone in any given com¬munity.

One in 10 Iraqi households is headed by woman according to International Organization for Migration, though their assessments suggest that this ratio rises to 1 in 8 in displaced families.

Objective : To draw attention to the exposure and vulnerability of women headed families to key medical and social problems.

Methods : This cross-sectional study was con-ducted from March through February 2011.

Eleven non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were chosen to be the pool of data collection, in addition to 50 primary, intermediate, and secondary schools for girls.

The actual participants were 720 with a response rate of (97 %).

Women headed families participated in the study were distributed in different areas of Baghdad and the districts around.

Results : Hypertension is the leading disease (20 %) followed by arthritis (9.6 %), heart disease (7.6 %), and diabetes mellitus (5.2 %), the least was tuberculosis (0.1 %).

On the other hand, the number of sons and daughters with chronic disease was 159 (6.4 %).

Respi¬ratory system disease is at the top of the list at a rate of (20.6 per 1000) while the gastrointestinal disease is at the bottom at a rate of (1.6 per 1000).

7.8 % of the studied household-heading women were exposed to violence that was either verbal (75 %) or physical (25 %), the source was the woman's parents (42.9 %), husband's family (34 %), neighbors (8.9 %), and others (14.3 %).

The percentage of problematic sons (1 7.9 %) who show different types of behavior, (30.2 %) of them not obeying their mothers, (21 %) hit their brothers, (9.3 %) insulting the mother, (2.3 %) have problems with neighbors.