Impact of Women Circumcision on Mental Health

Female genital mutilation / cutting is a damaging traditional procedure, that affects the psychosomatic wellbeing of women and girls all over the world. It has short-term and long-term of psychological, sexual and physiological effects on women. The objective of current study was to measure the mental health of circumcised women and compare them with noncircumcised women in Kurdistan province of Iran. A total number of 208 married women (104 circumcised-women and 104 non-circumcised-women) those who referred to the healthcare centers for vaccination, midwifery, or family planning services in Kurdistan province of Iran, were selected as the population of study. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was administered among the participants for data gathering. Gathered Data was analyzed using the soft-ware package of SPSS version 23 by utilizing independent t-test. P-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. The findings indicated that there was a major difference in the term of mental well-being between two groups of circumcised and noncircumcised women. The study concluded that circumcised women lose the pleasure of their life as a consequence of female genital mutilation/ cutting. Awareness about mental and psychical status of circumcised women could help them to be prevented from FGM/C procedures.