The Role of Religion and Spirituality in Iranian Youth Sexual Behaviors: A Systematic Review

Premarital sex is forbidden legally, culturally, and religiously in Iran. Compared to other youth, this behavior is less common among religious youth and theists. This study aimed at providing a systematic review of the relation between religion and spirituality and premarital sex among youth in Iran.
In this systematic review, PubMed, Scopus, PreQuest, Google Scholar, Magiran, Irandoc, and SID databases were searched for articles published until April 2017 using some keywords, including premarital sexual relationship, religion, spiritual, etc. All papers on the relation between religious, spirituality, and premarital sex among Iranian youth were investigated. We found 162 articles, from which 13 were selected based on the study’s inclusion criteria. Afterwards, qualitative analysis of data was conducted.
A total of 8636 youth had been studied in 13 quantitative studies. Many studies had investigated the relationship between religion and premarital sex (53.85%). Other studies included the association between religion and the attitudes towards premarital sex and the desire for that.
Compared to other countries, there are few studies on the relation between religion and spirituality and youth sexual behavior in Iran. According to the importance of premarital sexual relation among Iranian youths, and heterogeneity of information on this subject in previous studies, further researches are required with strong methodologies and more culturally appropriate tools.