IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v22y2025i2p149-d1574436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘But Because I Don’t Know About It, That’s Why I Haven’t Done It’: Experiences of Access to Preventive Sexual and Reproductive Health Care for Refugee Women from Iraq and Syria Living in Melbourne, Australia—A Qualitative Study

Author

Listed:
  • Natasha Davidson

    (Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia)

  • Karin Hammarberg

    (Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia)

  • Jane Fisher

    (Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3004, Australia)

Abstract

Women from Syria and Iraq constitute two of the largest groups of humanitarian visa entrants to Australia in the past 10 years. Barriers to and enablers of preventive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) for these women are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to establish the preventive SRH care needs and experiences of women from refugee backgrounds from Syria and Iraq living in Australia. A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with women from Syria and Iraq living in Melbourne, Australia. Caseworkers assisted with recruitment and volunteer interpreters with interviews. Between 1 December 2021 and 17 May 2022, interviews were conducted in English or in Arabic with a volunteer interpreter. Audio recordings of English dialogue were transcribed verbatim. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse and report data. Eighteen women were interviewed. Six themes were identified: (1) Awareness and knowledge about preventive SRH, (2) Perceptions about the need for preventive SRH care seeking, (3) Self-care and lack of motivation to seek preventive SRH care, (4) Health information seeking, and (5) Barriers to and enablers of preventive SRH care. Complex factors were found to influence access to preventive SRH care. Enhancing educational initiatives, improving accessibility to reliable health information, and addressing structural and motivational barriers are important for fostering better preventive SRH outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Natasha Davidson & Karin Hammarberg & Jane Fisher, 2025. "‘But Because I Don’t Know About It, That’s Why I Haven’t Done It’: Experiences of Access to Preventive Sexual and Reproductive Health Care for Refugee Women from Iraq and Syria Living in Melbourne, Au," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(2), pages 1-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:2:p:149-:d:1574436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/2/149/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/22/2/149/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Josefin Wångdahl & Per Lytsy & Lena Mårtensson & Ragnar Westerling, 2018. "Poor health and refraining from seeking healthcare are associated with comprehensive health literacy among refugees: a Swedish cross-sectional study," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 63(3), pages 409-419, April.
    2. Jason Talevski & Anna Wong Shee & Bodil Rasmussen & Georgie Kemp & Alison Beauchamp, 2020. "Teach-back: A systematic review of implementation and impacts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-18, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuriy Nesterko & David Jäckle & Michael Friedrich & Laura Holzapfel & Heide Glaesmer, 2020. "Health care needs among recently arrived refugees in Germany: a cross-sectional, epidemiological study," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(6), pages 811-821, July.
    2. Pilar Bas-Sarmiento & Miriam Poza-Méndez & Martina Fernández-Gutiérrez & Juan Luis González-Caballero & María Falcón Romero, 2020. "Psychometric Assessment of the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q16) for Arabic/French-Speaking Migrants in Southern Europe," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-15, November.
    3. Martin Wetzke & Christine Happle & Annabelle Vakilzadeh & Diana Ernst & Georgios Sogkas & Reinhold E. Schmidt & Georg M. N. Behrens & Christian Dopfer & Alexandra Jablonka, 2018. "Healthcare Utilization in a Large Cohort of Asylum Seekers Entering Western Europe in 2015," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-9, October.
    4. Anna Christina Nowak & Yudit Namer & Claudia Hornberg, 2022. "Health Care for Refugees in Europe: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-10, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:22:y:2025:i:2:p:149-:d:1574436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.