Determinants of Early Marriage from Married Girls' Perspectives in Iranian Setting: A Qualitative Study.
Early marriage is a worldwide problem associated with a range of health and social consequences for teenage girls. Designing effective health interventions for managing early marriage needs to apply the community-based approaches. However, it has received less attention from policymakers and health researchers in Iran. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore determinants of early marriage from married girls' perspectives. The study was conducted from May 2013 to January 2015 in Ahvaz, Iran. A purposeful sampling method was used to select fifteen eligible participants. Data were collected through face-to-face, semistructured interviews and were analyzed using the conventional content analysis approach. Three categories emerged from the qualitative data including "family structure," "Low autonomy in decision-making," and "response to needs." According to the results, although the participants were not ready to get married and intended to postpone their marriage, multiple factors such as individual and contextual factors propelled them to early marriage. Given that early marriage is a multifactorial problem, health care providers should consider a multidimensional approach to support and empower these vulnerable girls.
Department of Reproductive Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Simin
S
Montazeri
Department of Reproductive Health, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Maryam
M
Gharacheh
Department of Critical Care Nursing, Centre for Nursing Care Research, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Nooredin
N
Mohammadi
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Javad
J
Alaghband Rad
Department of Health Education, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Hassan
H
Eftekhar Ardabili
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors