Toward an understanding of married Saudi women's attitudes and knowledge concerning STIs

Abstract

Saudi Arabian married women face risks with respect to STIs transmission in Saudi society. This dissertation reviews three manuscripts on this topic. As described in Manuscripts One and Two, no quantitative instrument for measuring married Saudi Arabian women's knowledge, attitudes and perceptions about STIs exists. Therefore, Manuscript Three reports on a qualitative study that was done to derive themes and a new thematic framework to guide the development of such an instrument. The qualitative study involved interviewing married Saudi Arabian women about their knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions about STIs. Data were analyzed for themes and the resulting themes were assembled into a thematic framework that included two subcategories: themes directly about STIs and indirectly about STIs. The themes directly about STIs included perceptions of danger and risk factors for getting an STI, causes and vectors of transmission for STIs, prevention of STIs, education and awareness of STIs, and dealing with people infected with STIs including providing treatment. This thematic framework will guide the subsequent development of this Saudi married women's quantitative instrument to measure knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of STIs.