Peer-reviewed article
Estimating utility value for female genital mutilation
Cyrus Alinia, Bakhtiar Piroozi, Fariba Jahanbin, Hossein Safari, Amjad Mohamadi Bolbanabad et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study measured the health-related quality of life of 125 Iranian women and girls who had undergone female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) using a standard health utility method. Women with FGM/C reported a mean health utility value of 0.971 out of 1.0, indicating that the practice reduced their quality of life by approximately 3% on average. More severe forms of FGM/C (Type 1) were associated with lower quality of life scores than Type 2. The findings suggest FGM/C affects both physical and psychological well-being.
Key points
- Mean health utility score for women with FGM/C was 0.971, with 46.4% reporting perfect health (no reduction in quality of life)
- Among those who reported some health loss, mean utility was 0.946
- Type 1 FGM/C (clitoridectomy) resulted in significantly lower health utility (0.968) than Type 2 (excision) at 0.987
- Women aged 31-45 years, single, divorced, employed, and with supplementary insurance reported significantly lower health utility than counterparts
- Overall FGM/C practice resulted in approximately 3% reduction in health-related quality of life
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional study without a comparison group of unaffected women, so it cannot definitively attribute quality-of-life differences solely to FGM/C or determine causality. The study only captured Types 1 and 2 FGM/C and was limited to one country (Iran), so findings may not generalise to other contexts or more severe forms of the practice.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a clear violation of women's rights and can have adverse and irreversible health effects as well. Worldwide, more than 200 million women and girls have undergone FGM/C. Utility value of FGM/C has not been estimated yet, so we designed this study to extract the health utility value of FGM/C for the first time in the world. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study in Iran, 125 girls and women who underwent FGM/C procedure were examined by the trained midwives in order to determine its type. In addition, a questionnaire was completed for identifying the socio-demographic factors and extracting the health utility of these individuals. Health utility was measured using Time Trade-off method and also to determine the effects of the socio-demographic factors on the health utility a two-limit censored regression model was applied. RESULTS: The mean and median of the health utility of women with FGM/C were 0.971 (SE: 0.003) and 0.968 (IQR: 1-0.95), respectively. Number of non-traders was 58 (46.4%) who reported perfect health utility. However, the mean of health utility among traders was 0.946 (SE: 0.002). Only type 1 (Clitoridectomy) and type 2 (Excision) FGM/C were seen in this study. Women with Type 1 FGM/C had significantly lower health utility value (Mean: 0.968, Median: 0.957) than their type 2 counterparts (Mean: 0.987, Median: 1.00). Moreover, women in the age group of 31-45 years (Mean: 0.962, Median: 0.956), single (Mean: 0.950, Median: 0.954), divorced (Mean: 0.951, Median: 0.950), employed (Mean: 0.959, Median: 0.956), and with supplementary insurance (Mean: 0.962, Median: 0.950) had significantly lower health utility than their counterparts. CONCLUSION: FGM/C affects physical and psychological well-being of these individuals, resulting in a lack of personal and marital satisfaction, which ultimately leads to a 3% reduction in their health related quality of life. Therefore, preventing from this practice is very important and should be considered by health system policy makers more than before.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- None; this is an observational study measuring the health utility value of women who have already undergone FGM/C
- Population
- 125 girls and women in Iran who had undergone FGM/C
Key finding
Mean health utility of 0.971 (SE: 0.003) indicating 3% reduction in health-related quality of life