A Study of Domestic Violence against Women: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis

Background: Domestic violence is the most popular form of violence against women. Phenomenon of In the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women-1993 (DEVAW), was introduced as a barrier for reaching equality, development and peace. The objective of this research was to study individuals’ lived experiences, especially the experiences of women exposed to violence in Iran. Methods: This research is a descriptive research which employs a systemic review. The statistical population consists of all the qualitative studies conducted in Iran to consider the physical violence against women. To collect the data, Persian keywords for violence against women, domestic violence, wife abuse, violence against spouse and spouses who were beaten were searched in the Iranian online databases including SID, Irandocs, Iranmedex, Iranpsych, and Magiran. As the result of this search, 27 qualitative studies were selected which were exactly dedicated to the domestic violence from the viewpoints of men, women and experts. Then, the repetitions and the studies which were conducted before 2001 were excluded. After close reading of all the researches 10 of them were eventually selected. Results: The most reported items after studying the individuals’ lived experiences of physical violence against women in Iran included patriarchy, drug abuse, inappropriate sociability, lack of men’s mental stability, deficiency in communicative skills between the couples and ignorance of each other’s mental and sexual needs. The most reported strategies also encompass inactive and inefficient approaches such as keeping quiet but preoccupied with the problem, filing complaints, not being on speaking terms for a long while, revenge and deprivation of intercourse. Conclusion: This social issue should be also studied like all other social issues as a multi-dimensional phenomenon in the social context.