ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Glob. Women’s Health
Sec. Maternal Health
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2025.1584113
Doctors' experiences on dealing with informed consent required for lifesaving interventions for pregnant women in Somalia
Provisionally accepted
- 1United Nations Population Fund, New York, United States
- 2Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
- 3Bidhaamiye Centre for Social Development and Rebuilding, Mogadishu Somalia, Mogadisho, Somalia
- 4Somali Maternal and Child Health Research Institute, Mogadisho, Somalia
- 5Somali National University, Mogadishu, Somalia
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This study revealed that doctors require protection when performing their duties. All doctors who participated in the study were ready to save the lives of their patients, but were assured of their safety. Patients seem to cooperate with doctors, but the cultural practices of providing consent from male members remain a challenge to the intervention. A national health policy should be drafted and approved by the cabinet that grant women the sole right to consent to life-saving medical interventions. Additionally, community mobilization is needed to educate community leaders about the negative impact of delaying or denying women informed consent to essential healthcare due to the patriarchal norms.The risks to patients' lives require the need to intervene with national policies and make changes as soon as possible.
Keywords: Consent, Pregnant Women, male paternal members of the family, cultural practices, cultural model
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Aweis, Mauma, Aweis, Afrah, Guled and Kulane. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ahmed Aweis, United Nations Population Fund, New York, United States
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