Investigation of Prevalence and Complications of Female Genital Circumcision: A Systematic and Meta-analytic Review Study

Abstract

Objective: The present study was conducted to investigate the complications of circumcision and determine its prevalence in the studied areas. Methods: In this study, the electronic databases of Scopus, PubMed, SID, Web of Science and Magiran were selected to search the total population of observational studies published in Persian and English on the prevalence and circumcision complications in girls. The keywords searched for this purpose were as follows: female genital mutilation, Infibulations, Epidemiologic Methods, Clitorectomies, Female Circumcision, Clitorectomy, Clitoridectomy Complications, Prevalence, associated disease, coexistent conditions, and sequels associated with concomitant conditions, and coexistent disease and their Persian equivalent words. Prevalence estimates of all studies were pooled using a random-effects model at a confidence level of 95%. The bias in the published results of the studies and any reporting errors were examined using Begg and Egger’s statistical tests. Out of 3756 studies, 45 articles were included in the study after excluding irrelevant and repetitive articles. Results: After reviewing the articles in this field, it was determined that female genital mutilation has sexual complications, problems during childbirth, physical and psychological complications. The prevalence of female genital circumcision in the world and Iran in the study areas was obtained using the random effect model, which was estimated to be 61% (95%, CI = 0.49, 0.73) and 61% (95%, CI = 0.52, 0.70), respectively. In other areas, the prevalence was reported to be close to zero. In total, among different countries of the world, of the 207,709 participants surveyed, 110,596 had undergone female genital circumcision (110,596 of 207,709). Conclusion: The effects of female genital mutilation on girls are high and require government intervention in various countries.