Prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of deaf and normal children in Ardabil, North Western Iran

Having healthy non-handicapped children plays a major role in mental health of the family and decreases family and society''s costs. While consanguineous marriage could lead to expression of recessive genes and a variety of handicaps including deafness، the aim of present study was to scrutinize the prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of deaf and normal children as well as its relationship with deafness. In this study، 467 couples parenting normal children were selected by cluster sampling from elementary، guidance and high schools of Ardabil city and 423 couples parenting disabled children were selected non-randomly among which 130 had deaf children. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the prevalence of consanguineous marriage and chi-square test to compare prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of normal and deaf children. Descriptive analyses showed that 80 out of 130 (61. 54%) parents who had deaf children have had consanguineous marriage. Furthermore data analysis demonstrated that prevalence of consanguineous marriage was significantly higher among parents of deaf children (p<0. 001). Consanguineous marriage plays a major role in expression of recessive genes and could lead to development of various handicaps including deafness. Increasing couples'' awareness about consequences of consanguineous marriage and conducting genetic counseling are indispensable.