Hysterectomy of Girls with Intellectual Disabilities in Jordan: A Family Perspective

Abstract

The current study aimed at determining the Jordanian families’ degree of acceptance of having a hysterectomy performed on their daughters with intellectual disabilities (ID). It also aimed to study the differences based on the age of the girl with intellectual Disability, the type of the Intellectual disability of the girl, the severity level of disability, the gender of surveyed parent, the level of education of surveyed parent, and the level of monthly income of the family. The participants of the study were (329) parents of girls with intellectual disabilities. Each one of the participant completed a questionnaire consisted of (21) items. The study concluded that the overall participants’ degree of acceptance of having a hysterectomy performed on their daughters with intellectual disabilities was low. The findings indicated that the families who had disabled daughters between the ages of 11-20 years had higher degree of acceptance of having their daughters undergo hysterectomy than the families who had disabled daughters between the ages of 5 - 10 years or even the ages of 21-30 years. The results showed that the families did not differ in their degree of acceptance of having a hysterectomy performed on their daughters with intellectual disabilities based on their daughters’ type of disability. The results showed that the families who had daughters with severe or profound disability had higher degree of acceptance of having their daughters undergo hysterectomy than participants who had daughters with mild or moderate disability.The results showed that the degree of acceptance of the mothers of girls with intellectual disabilities to perform hysterectomy on them was higher than the degree of acceptance of the fathers of girls with intellectual disabilities. The results showed that the participant parents (either mother or father in each family) who had no education had higher degree of acceptance of having their daughters undergo hysterectomy than the participant parents who had different levels of education. The results also showed that the families who had higher income had a higher degree of acceptance of having their daughters undergo hysterectomy than the families who had less income.