Author/Authors :
Boroumandfar, Khadijeh Department of Midwifery - School of Nursing and Midwifery - Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran , Javaheri, Shabnam Department of Midwifery - School of Nursing and Midwifery - Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran , Ehsanpour, Soheila Nursing and Midwifery Care Research Center - School of Nursing and Midwifery - Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran , Abedi, Ahmad Department of Psychology - School of Educational Sciences - Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract :
BACKGROUND: Domestic violence (DV) is a serious problem all over the world which had been extended to boundaries of
countries, economical, cultural and racial classes. 10-69 percent of women are exposed to physical, sexual and emotional
violence which has numerous physical and emotional consequences. Therefore, males' attitude towards women is one of
the strongest predicting factors of violence against women, so one of the ways to remove the violence against women is to
change the men's attitude. Changing the attitude, in the basic stages of the marriage for couples who are not yet involved
with marital misunderstandings, will probably influence their future relationships, therefore, the present study reviewed
two attitude changing methods of educational package (EP) and social inoculation (SI) which were used to change the attitude
among male volunteers participating in the premarital counseling classes.
METHODS: This was a semi-experimental study aimed to determine the influence of two methods of supplying EP and SI
on the change of attitude toward DV against women. The study subjects included male volunteers participating in Isfahan
Molla Hadi Sabzevari Premarital Counseling Center, where the attitudes of 183 subjects were investigated primarily using
simple sampling method. Ninety-nine subjects who had positive attitude toward DV were selected and then, randomly
distributed into three 33-subject groups. The first was SI group, the second was EP supply group and the third was the control
group. Data collection tool was an evaluating questionnaire of the attitude toward DV against women which consisted
of two parts, demographic data and 34 attitude evaluating questions. Scientific validity was determined by content validity
method and scientific reliability was determined using Cronbach's alpha. Analyzing the data was done using descriptive
(frequency and mean), analytical statistical methods (paired-t, independent t-tests, ANOVA, Duncan, Kruskal-Wallis and
chi-square) and SPSS software.
RESULTS: Among 183 participants, 99 of them (54%) had a positive attitude with an average score of 46.5 and 84 of them
(45%) with an average score of 29 had a negative attitude toward violence against women. Before the intervention, the
highest violence attitude was in emotional, physical and sexual areas, respectively. After the intervention in the inoculation
group, the highest attitude changes were in physical, sexual and emotional areas, respectively and in the EP group, in total
the attitude changes score after the intervention was significant compared to prior to it, although changes were observed
only in physical and sexual areas. In SI group, more attitude changes were occurred than that in EP group. In control
group, the attitude score after the intervention had no significant change compared to it before.
CONCLUSIONS: Although attitude change has no guaranty for changing the behavior, in order to change the behavior,
changing the attitude is required, in which for violence against women, it is better to be started at the beginning of the marital
relationship. The SI method has been successfully applied in psychology Sciences and the health programs, but the EP
method is not an effective method on its own to change the attitude, so it is better to be accompanied by other methods like
group discussion, etc.
Keywords :
Domestic violence , attitude change , social inoculation , educational package , premarital counseling
