Attitude of Childless Married Women Towards Childbearing in Zanjan, Iran

Objective(s): The fertility rate has decreased by 79% worldwide and Iran. This study was conducted to assess the attitude of childless married women towards childbearing. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. A sample of childless married women referred to the comprehensive urban health service centers of Zanjan, Iran were selected by cluster sampling method. Attitude of the participants towards childbearing was evaluated by an instrument. Finally, the data were entered into SPSS software (Version 26) and analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: In all 220 women were studied. The findings showed that %61.4 of the participants had positive attitude at a good level, 36.4% had positive attitude at a moderate level and 2.3% had positive attitude at a low level. The mean score of attitude towards childbearing was 70.46 (SD=14.87). The findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the mean attitude score towards childbearing and age (p=0.788), housing status (p=0.505) and income (p=0.210). However, there were significant differences between the mean attitude score towards childbearing and educational level of the women (p>0.001) and their husbands (p<0.001) and also employment status of women (p>0.001) and their husbands (p=0.024). Conclusions: The findings suggest that people with higher educational and employment status are less positive towards childbearing. Conducting educational and motivational programs for such couples seems essential.