Women’s Reproductive Health Status in Urban Slums in Southeast Iran in 2017: A Cross-sectional Study

Reproductive health has been documented as international human rights. In this respect, residing in slums can lead to poor reproductive health status due to reduced access to healthcare services. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine women’s reproductive health status in urban slums in southeast Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, a total number of 400 married slum-dwelling women in southeastern Iran were selected through random sampling in 2017. The inclusion criteria were marriage, residence in slum areas, and age group of 15-49 years. To collect the data, the Reproductive Health Needs Assessment questionnaire was completed using face-to-face interviews. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the data using SPSS software (version 19).

67.8% of sample were women who were married before the age of 18. Also 36% of the subjects had more than four children, and 79.9% of them experienced an inter-pregnancy interval of less than 3 years. Moreover, 96.8% of the participants received prenatal care services, and 81% of the individuals used family planning methods. Unintended pregnancies experienced by 26% of the subjects, and 59% of them suffered from reproductive tract infections within the last year. The prevalence rate of sexual and physical violence were 40% and 20.5%, respectively.

Although the coverage of prenatal, childbirth, and family planning services was appropriate in this region, the domains of family planning, physical and sexual violence, as well as marriage age in women living in urban slums, were undesirable and required more efforts to be improved by reproductive health professionals.