Medical and social problems among women headed families in Baghdad

Background: Women-headed families tend to be the most marginalized and poverty prone in any given community. One in 10 Iraqi households is headed by woman according to International Organization for Migration, though their assessments suggest that this ratio rises to 1 in 8 in displaced families. Objective: To draw attention to the exposure and vulnerability of women headed families to key medical and social problems. Methods: This cross – sectional study was conducted from March through February 2011. Eleven non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were chosen to be the pool of data collection, in addition to 50 primary, intermediate, and secondary schools for girls. The actual participants were 720 with a response rate of (97%). Women headed families participated in the study were distributed in different areas of Baghdad and the districts around. Results: Hypertension is the leading disease (20%) followed by arthritis (9.6%), heart disease (7.6%), and diabetes mellitus (5.2%), the least was tuberculosis (0.1%). On the other hand, the number of sons and daughters with chronic disease was 159 (6.4%). Respiratory system disease is at the top of the list at a rate of (20.6 per 1000) while the gastrointestinal disease is at the bottom at a rate of (1.6 per 1000). 7.8% of the studied household-heading women were exposed to violence that was either verbal (75%) or physical (25%), the source was the woman's parents (42.9%), husband's family (34%), neighbors (8.9%), and others (14.3%). The percentage of problematic sons (17.9%) who show different types of behavior, (30.2%) of them not obeying their mothers, (21%) hit their brothers, (9.3%) insulting the mother, (2.3%) have problems with neighbors.