A Review of Family Pathology Studies in Iran in Years 2001 - 2011:Trend, Patterns and Tendencies

Social pathology is one of the most common and practical specialized fields in sociology which thrives by the passing of time. Social pathology comprises a wide variety of topics one of which is family social pathology which is probed into in this study.Meta-analysis is the most significant method used to summarize the past, abundant, various and extensive studies on a particular topic. Meta-analysis is considered a suitable method for development and accumulation of knowledge. In addition, knowledge measurement is one of the most efficient methods used to evaluate the general status of research studies. This method is utilized to gauge the quantity of scientific production. Focusing on meta-analysis and knowledge measurement, the current study deals with three important research issues: the trend of research studies, patterns and tendencies of research studies and family social pathology studies in Iran in years 2001 – 2011. Following meta-analysis and knowledge measurement approaches, this study was carried out on the basis of content analysis method and the required data were collected from the research journals indexed in Jihad-e Daneshgahi Scientific Database until mid-2012.The findings indicated that family social pathology studies in Iran have constantly increased in years 2001 – 2011. The research patterns have been reported in terms of the year of publication, number of authors, scientific cooperation, the role of female and male authors in research partnership, the volume of essays, the type of research journal and geographic distribution. Beside the ten subsidiary types of research studies, the findings indicated that the main research tendencies were running away from home (runaway girls and running away from home) (26%), violence at home (violence against women and home violence) (25%) and harassment in the family (child abuse and spouse abuse) (25%) respectively and other cases (divorce, socializing with the opposite sex, female householders, pediarchy, loss of father) included 24% percent.