The Relationship between Religious Beliefs and the Tendency towards Childbirth in Married Women Attending to the Health and Medical Centers of Behshahr in 1397

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, sari, Iran

Abstract

The recent study aimed at determining the relationship between religious beliefs and the tendency to childbirth in married women referring to health centers in Behshahr city in 1397, with decreasing childbearing trend in recent years coinciding with changes in religious beliefs. This research is a cross-sectional, correlation study. The study population consisted of married women (in reproductive age) attending to health, treatment and education centers in Behshahr city in 1977. The samples were 280 people. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire and the data were analyzed by SPSS software (version 24) using descriptive statistics and Pearson, Spearman and regression’s correlation tests. The mean age of women was 30.4±3 years and the mean age of marriage was 21.3±3.9 years. There was a significant difference between the mean score of religious beliefs and number of preferred children (P <0.5). People with weak religious beliefs had fewer wanted children and had one child and fewewr (1.1%). Stepwise regression analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between education and religious belief in childbearing. According to the findings, tendency to childbearing was influenced by the level of religious beliefs of women and this influence plays a greater role in the presence of economic, social variables, so designing educational interventions in order to implement the politics of childbearing enhancement based on social, cultural measures to promote religious beliefs can be a good solution.

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