Women’s self-care behavior and its relationship with social capital in Yazd, Iran

BACKGROUND: Research on factors affecting self-care is scarce. The social factors, in particular, have not been yet investigated in Iran. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-care and social capital among women. METHODS: The participants were 737 women who were living in the marginal, middle and upper areas in the city of Yazd, Iran. Data were collected using a researcher-made self-care questionnaire and Harper’s (Off Natl Stat 11:2019, 2019) Social Capital Scale. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling by SPSS and Amos v24. RESULTS: The results showed that the social capital had significant positive effects on the general self-care behavior of the participants (β = 0.56, p < 0.001). It also had significant positive effects on the self-care behavior of women living in the marginal (β = 0.58), middle (β = 0.49) and upper (β = 0.62) parts of the city (p < 0.001). Besides, the women living in the marginal parts had relatively lower levels of self-care compared to those living in the middle and upper parts of the city. The examination of the fit indices indicated that the model has a good fit (CMIN/DF = 2.087, NFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.027, CFI = 0.956, TLI = 0.940, GFI = 0.956, IFI = 0.957). CONCLUSION: The findings of this study demonstrated that social capital has significant positive effects on the general self-care behavior of women. Therefore, improving their self-care can be achieved through promoting their social capital. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-021-01469-0.