Author(s)

Fatemeh Rahmanian, Masoumeh Simbar, Ali Ramezankhani, Farid Zayeri

Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Paramedicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Midwifery and Reproductive Health, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
The Research Center for Safe Motherhood, Department of Midwifery and Reproductive Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.

Background: The global incidence of STIs is rising. It is estimated that 499 million new cases of curable STIs occur every year. The existence of more than one million reported cases of STIs annually in Iran shows that addressing this issue must be a priority for Iranian health authorities. While recognition of the importance of gender issues to reproductive health (RH) programs has grown significantly in the past several years, major challenges remain in implementing gender-sensitive programs. Gender mainstreaming in Iranian reproductive health program is a relatively new issue, so this study aims to explore gender sensitive STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention policies. Method: This study employed a qualitative research design. Participants were health managers, health policy makers and reproductive health providers. They were selected purposefully and then continued by snowball sampling method. 43 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 37 key informants were done. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed. The data were analyzed by content analysis method. Trustworthiness of the data was achieved by using credibility, trans-ferability and conformability. Results: Key informants clearly explained the gender sensitive STIs/ HIV/AIDS prevention policies in three main categories: 1) advocacy, 2) collaboration between different sectors and 3) community empowerment to gender sensitive STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Conclusion: Changing gender neural STIs/HIV/AIDS prevention policy to more complete gender sensitive policy needs advocacy, collaboration of sectors and community empowerment.

Gender, Gender Sensitive, STIs/HIV/AIDS Prevention, Policies, Qualitative Study

Rahmanian, F. , Simbar, M. , Ramezankhani, A. and Zayeri, F. (2014) Gender Sensitive STIs/HIV/AIDS Prevention Policies: A Qualitative Study. Health, 6, 1246-1254. doi: 10.4236/health.2014.611153.