Empowerment in Family Planning as Viewed by Iranian Women: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Women carry the primary responsibility for family planning in most parts of the world, and should be afforded the power of decision-making and control over their fertility. This study seeks to gain insight into Iranian women's perception of the meaning of empowerment in family planning. Using a qualitative study, seven focus group discussions and five individual interviews were conducted with 35 married Iranian women of reproductive age. The data were analysed using a conventional content analysis approach, in which themes and categories were explored to reveal women's experiences of empowerment in family planning. The results demonstrated four main categories: control over fertility plan, participative family planning, maintaining health and access to optimal family planning services. They viewed knowledge of family planning and autonomy of decision-making in fertility issues as essential elements for control of their fertility plan. Participants felt more empowered when joint family planning decisions were made with their partners in an atmosphere of agreement. Therefore, family planning policymakers should plan services with new approaches that focus on women's health and empowerment.

Womens Needs Related to Family Planning: Meta-Synthesis

“…The included studies were performed in Asia [20,21,23,24] North America [22,25,26] Euro-Asia [18] and the Middle East [19]. Three were performed in health services [21][22][23] and four did not inform the collecting location [19,20,25,26].…”

“…The adaptation corresponded to an increase in two questions about social-historical context and ethical aspects in domain [2,17]. In the criteria analysis, all studies explained the social-historical context, guide themes, identified set of categories and inductive character of analysis [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Eight studies reported about how participants were selected [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

“…In the criteria analysis, all studies explained the social-historical context, guide themes, identified set of categories and inductive character of analysis [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Eight studies reported about how participants were selected [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Six mentioned type of analysis [20,[22][23][24][25][26] and five notified how many researchers analyzed the data [20][21][22]25].…”

“…Eight studies reported about how participants were selected [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Six mentioned type of analysis [20,[22][23][24][25][26] and five notified how many researchers analyzed the data [20][21][22]25]. Five studies informed about researcher experience and training [20-22, 25, 26].…”

“…Three presented their theoretical-methodological foundations [21,25,26]. All studies did not provide any information on some criterion [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].We followed the guidance by Campbell, et al [14] and Sandelowski and Barroso [27] about the importance of performing a careful judgment to avoid the exclusion of precise and relevant studies on synthesis. Therefore, it was sought, rigorously, on the explanations and the amount of information contained in the publications [27][28][29].…”