Life loaded with threat and vulnerability: a qualitative inquiry into the experiences of HIV negative married women in serodiscordant heterosexual relationships

BACKGROUND: Violence against women is a major, complex, multidimensional and widespread public health concern worldwide. The current qualitative study was conducted to understand the experience of violence among HIV negative married women in heterosexual serodiscordant relationships. METHODS: A qualitative description (QD) was conducted from October 2018 to January 2020 in Mashhad, Iran. The participants were 15 HIV negative women, who married and lived with HIV positive men, through purposive sampling method. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Data analyzed using conventional content analysis adopted by Graneheim and Lundman. RESULTS: The main overarching theme emerged entitled: life loaded with threat and vulnerability. This theme consisted of four categories of self-directed violence, intimate partner violence, cultural violence and structural violence. The violence began soon after awareness of husband's infection with acts such as suicide attempts and a sense of abhorrence for living with an infected person, and continued with confrontation with various types of violence in the family and society, which put women in constant threat and vulnerability. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided an insight into different aspects of violence in Iranian women in HIV serodiscordant relationships. Considering the role of men in the occurrence of violence, policymakers must create and execute family-centered interventions to address attitudes and behaviors that lead to marital conflicts and spousal abuse in order to prevent violence. Health care professionals should also be trained to screen women for violence and refer those who require care to specialists to reduce vulnerability. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-021-01546-4.