Susan Waigwa|Lucy Doos|Caroline Bradbury?Jones|Julie Taylor
Effectiveness of health education as an intervention designed to prevent female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C): a systematic review
University of Birmingham|University College Birmingham|University of Birmingham|University of Birmingham|Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust|University of Birmingham
female genital mutilationcutting fgmc harmful practice violates human rights women girls despite global efforts restrict practice reports major positive changes problem health education interventions successful preventing various health conditions promoting service use also regarded promising interventions preventing fgmc objective systematic review synthesise findings studies effectiveness health education intervention prevent fgmc electronic databases searched medline embase cochrane library web science psych info cinahl assia search included papers published english language without date limits study quality assessed using mixed methods appraisal tool mmat predesigned data recording form used extract data included studies summarised comparing similar themes twelve 359 individual studies met inclusion criteria seven studies quantitative three qualitative two used mixed methods six studies tested interventions four studies assessed effectiveness previous interventions used different research teams two studies endorsed intervention four main factors emerged associated facilitating hindering effectiveness health education interventions sociodemographic factors socioeconomic factors traditions beliefs intervention strategy structure delivery vital target factors associated facilitating hindering effectiveness health education fgmc increases possibility effective collective change behaviour attitude leads sustainable prevention fgmc ultimately improved reproductive health wellbeing individuals communities