The study of tendency to childbearing and its relationship with spiritual health and health literacy in women referred to the healthcare centers of Torbat Heydarieh, Iran, in 2019

In recent decades, Iran has faced the problem of rapid fertility decline, which has changed the structure of the countrychr('39')s population and can eventually turn the countrychr('39')s young structure into an old structure. The results of population aging include include the decrease in the young and economically useful population and the labor force of the country, and will further lead to issues such as increasing the cost of caring for the elderly. One of the factors that affect fertility is the tendency to have children, which indicates a personchr('39')s interest in having children. Changing the lifestyle of Iranian women such as increasing the age of marriage, working outside the home and cultural and economic norms, etc. are factors that have reduced the tendency of women to have children. Examining the factors that affect womenchr('39')s tendency to have children can be a way to conduct scientific interventions to increase the tendency to have children. Undoubtedly, the tendency to have children can lead to an increase in fertility. In Islam, childbearing is recommended and pregnancy and breastfeeding are considered as worship for women. Therefore, one of the factors that have been measured in relation to the tendency to childbearing in this study is spiritual health. Another factor that has been measured in relation to the tendency to childbearing in this study is health literacy. We want to examine whether health literacy and spiritual health are related to the tendency to childbearing? The purpose of this study was to investigate the tendency to childbearing and its relationship with health literacy and spiritual health in women referring to the healthcare centers of Torbat Heydarieh in 2019.

This research is a cross-sectional study of analytical type that was conducted in the comprehensive health service centers of Torbat-e Heydarieh in 2019. 269 married women aged 15 to 49 years referring to comprehensive health service centers in Torbat-e Heydarieh were selected by cluster random sampling. The instrument used in this study was a four-part questionnaire, the first part was related to the personal characteristics of the participants and the second part was the childbearing tendency questionnaire and the third questionnaire was Helia Health Literacy Questionnaire and the fourth questionnaire was SWBS Spiritual Health Questionnaire. Questionnaires were provided to the samples and they were assured about the confidentiality of information and the optionality of the company and cancellation of the study at each stage of the research. Then the data analysis was performed using descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression in SPSS software version 23.0.

The mean age of women in this study was 28.9 ± 5.8 years and the mean number of children per household was 1.32±1.06. The mean age of the participantschr('39') spouses was 33.72 ± 6.44. The mean score of health literacy was 42.9±5.8, the mean score of childbearing tendency was 46.09 ± 6.9 and the mean score of spiritual health was 88.7±13.3. In 0.55 people, health literacy was at the border level and in 0.82 people, spiritual health was at the average level. The variables of age, number of children and level of education of the spouse were factors related to the tendency to childbearing. With increasing one year of age, the average score of tendency to childbearing increased by 0.33 (p = 0.02) and with the addition of one child, the mean score of tendency to childbearing decreased by 1.1 (p = 0.03). Pearson correlation coefficient was used to investigate the relationship between health literacy tendency to childbearing and spiritual health. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between health literacy and the tendency to childbearing and spiritual health. So that the correlation coefficient between health literacy and tendency to childbearing (p = 0.57, r = 0.04) and the correlation coefficient between health literacy and spiritual health were (p = 0.20, r = 0.08). There was a positive and significant relationship between the tendency to childbearing and spiritual health (p = 0.003, r = 0.18).

The results of the study showed that the level of womenchr('39')s health literacy had no effect on their tendency to childbearing and the two categories were unrelated in this study. But spiritual health had a positive and significant relationship with the tendency to childbearing. thatchr('39')s mean women with higher spiritual health were more interested in childbearing. Therefore, in planning educational interventions to increase womenchr('39')s tendency to childbearing, we must pay attention to the dimension of womenchr('39')s spiritual health and consider strengthening womenchr('39')s spiritual health.