Citation

Sohrabizadeh S, Tourani S, Reza Khankeh H. Women Health 2016; 56(8): 977-993.

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Science and education , Karolinska Institute , Stockholm , Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/03630242.2016.1176101

PMID

27135961

Abstract

Disasters do not affect people equally; the impact of disasters on the lives of women is different from other groups of a community. Women's fundamental rights to health and safety aregenerally violated after disasters. This study aimed to explore various factors of women's health with reference to previous natural disasters in Iran. A qualitative approach using in-depth unstructured interviews and field observations were employed to explore women's health factors in the affected regions. A total of 22 participants, affected by disasters as well as key informants, were interviewed applying the purposeful sampling method. Data were collected in three provinces, including East Azerbaijan, Bushehr, and Mazandaran, in 2014. A content analysis using the Graneheim approach was performed for analyzing the transcribed interviews. Two themes and four categories were extracted from the data. The themes that emerged included psycho-physical effects and women's health status. Physical and psycho-emotional effects and reproductive and environmental health effects were the four emergent categories. The findings implied that managing women's health challenges may result in reducing the distressing effects of disaster. These findings support identifications and application of the mechanisms by which women's well-being in physical, mental, reproductive, and environmental aspects can be protected after disasters.

Language: en