Relationship between Socioeconomic Status and General Health in the Female-headed Households

Female-headed households have lots of financial and emotional problems, and experience stress and anxiety more than male-headed households. There is little information about general health status in Female-headed households in Iran. So the aim of this study was to determine general health status in Female-headed households under cover of Welfare Organization of Ilam Province. 750 Female-headed households under cover of Welfare Organization of Ilam province participated in this descriptive-analytical study. In this study, the tool for collecting data included social-financial information, and general health questionnaires (GHQ - 28). Data analysis was conducted by SPSS statistical software ver.16, using descriptive-analytic statistics tests such as average, standard deviation, and logistic regression analysis. The significance rate in this study was considered as P<0.05. From 750 Female-headed households contributing to the project, 708 people completed questionnaires (response rate 94%). The age average and SD (standard deviation) of participants was 53.3± 19.88. According to the results, 79.8% of participants had the low rate of general health. In logistic regression analysis, there were the most significant general health predictor variables in female-headed households, include the age of participants (p=0.004), increasing duration of coverage (p=0.001), diagnosed disease (p=0.001). Discussion & According to the results, the most important causes affecting general health in female-headed households were illiteracy, inappropriate financial status, and having chronic illnesses. Since women-headed households have a lower level of general health than other classes of society. Therefore, increasing general health of this group requires planning and more effort.