Parents’ concerns regarding the growth characteristics of their adolescents: a qualitative inquiry in Iran

ABSTRACT

In recent times, parents have become increasingly concerned, both subjectively and objectively, about their adolescents' body height/weight growth. Parent-adolescent interactions about this issue and the potential socio-psychological consequences of such interactions should be considered as an important influencing factor on the future of adolescents' sexual and reproductive health. To achieve a greater understanding of such concerns, it is necessary to further elucidate parents' experiences on this topic, so as to expand the existing literature. This study aimed to explain the perceptions of parents' concerns regarding their adolescents' growth characteristics in the socio-cultural context of Iran as a transitional society. This paper is part of a larger qualitative study designed using the Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology (CGTM). We conducted open-ended intensive interviews with eleven parents individually and recruited them through purposeful and theoretical sampling from a teaching hospital, community, and a primary school in Tehran with theoretical sampling variation in terms of teenagers' age, sex, and birth order, place of residence, parents' occupation and education, and the self-reported socio-economic status. Using the analytical procedures of the CGTM, we performed analyses. In the findings, the concept of 'living with constant sense of uncertainty' emerged from the subcategories including 'feeling existing and potential concern about expected minimum and maximum bio-positions of growth,' 'feeling potential concern about biological health consequences,' 'feeling potential concern about the emergence of early/late maturity signs,' 'feeling potential concern about adolescent's emotional threat,' 'feeling concerned about future employment, education, marriage, and fertility,' and 'feeling potential concern about the society's view'. These findings suggest that parents are living with a constant sense of uncertainty about their teens' growth characteristics throughout the transition from adolescence. All stakeholders including parents, health-care practitioners and policymakers, and anthropologists/sociologists should be focus on such concerns, in order to manage them and their possible socio-psychological burdens.

KEYWORDS:

• Parents
• concern
• adolescent
• growth
• constructivist grounded theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Box 1. A sample of the open-ended questions in our interview guide.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Deputy of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran.

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Ali Cheraghi

Mohammad Ali Cheraghi, PhD, is currently Professor of Critical Care Nursing and Management at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in Iran. He has been Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery from 2010 to 2017. His research interests include philosophy and nursing; grounded theory; theory-practice gap; spirituality in nursing; and nursing ethics. He is currently the faculty member of the department of Critical Care Nursing and Management at TUMS and the member of National Board of Nursing at the Ministry of Health & Medical Education in Tehran, Iran.

Parvaneh Rezasoltani

Parvaneh Rezasoltani is currently PhD candidate of Reproductive and Sexual Health at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in Iran. She has been lecturer of midwifery and Maternal and Child Health at Guilan University of Medical Sciences (GUMS) in Iran since 2004. Her research interests include adolescents/children’ growth and health; maternal health including pregnancy, delivery, postpartum, and breastfeeding; preeclampsia; unwanted pregnancy; sexual health and counseling; andropause; menopause; intersectionality and sexuality; and existing and emerging strategies for  promoting women’s and men’s sexual and reproductive health in the context of Iran.

AbouAli Vedadhir

AbouAli Vedadhir, PhD, is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology and Health Studies at the University of Tehran. His research interests include socio-cultural studies of reproductive and sexual health with a focus on the Assisted Reproductive Technosciences (ARTs), infertility & selective reproduction; social construction of health and illness with a focus on medicalization studies; community-based nutrition and food policy; anthropological demography; anthropology and global health, and the anthropological Science and Technology Studies (STS) especially in the context of Iran and the Middle East, where he has conducted research since 1997. He has written and published various articles on the sexual and reproductive health and right (SRHR) with an anthropological perspective. He has formerly held visiting and research fellow positions at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), McMaster University, University College London (UCL) and University of Oxford. He is currently working on a project about The Cultural Politics of the Assisted Reproductive Technosciences (ARTs) and Population Policies in the context of Iran and the Middle East.

Ziba Taghizadeh

Ziba Taghizadeh, PhD, has recently ranked as an Associate Professor of Reproductive and Sexual Health at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in Iran. Her research interests include mental and social issue in reproductive health. She has worked in different positions including the member of National Board of Midwifery & Reproductive Health at the Ministry of Health & Medical Education, Tehran, Iran; the member of Institutional Ethics Committee at the Nursing and Midwifery School, TUMS; the member of National Midwifery Committee; and the member of National Physiologic Childbirth Committee.

Seyyed Hossein Samadanifard

Seyyed Hossein Samadanifard, MD, is currently Assistant Professor of internal medicine at Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) in Iran. He is a specialist in endocrinology and metabolism; therefore so many patients referred to him for evaluation of growth problems. However, many of them do not have any problem with their height growth at all and the assessment and treatment of them need medical and psychological knowledge. He is currently working at the department of endocrinology of Hazrat-e Rasool General Hospital affiliated to IUMS.