Consanguinity and associated socio-demographic factors in Qatari population

Abstract EN

A multi-stage sampling design was used between Janu¬ary and May 2004 to explore the association between socio-demograpliic factors and consanguineous marriages in the Qatari population using a sample of 1800 Qatari females aged 15 years and above.

Data on 1515 (85.8 %) Qatari national families who gave tlicir consent for the study were obtained.

The socio-demographic factors considered were : husband's age, her own age, husband's and own educa¬tional levels, husband's occupation, her own occupation, housing conditions, husband's parental kinship, her own parental kinship and kinship between the spouses.

The rate of consanguineous marriages in the sample was found to be 54 % with 95 % estimated population confidence limits 52.4 % to 55.6 %.

Consanguinity was more common for women with edu¬cated husbands (secondary or university / high) and the frequency of consanguineous marriage significantly in¬creased when the husband's educational level was higher (p = 0.003).

The results of stepwise multiple logistic regression anal / sis for the occurrence of consanguineous marriages showed that the wife's education, the husband's education and parents' consanguinity status were the only signifi¬cant associated variables.