[Prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of deaf and normal children in Ardabil, North Western Iran]

Having healthy non-handicapped children plays a major role in mental health of the family and decreases family and society's costs. While consanguineous marriage could lead to expression of recessive genes and a variety of handicaps including deafness, the aim of present study was to scrutinize the prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of deaf and normal children as well as its relationship with deafness. In this study, 467 couples parenting normal children were selected by cluster sampling from elementary, guidance and high schools of Ardabil city and 423 couples parenting disabled children were selected non-randomly among which 130 had deaf children. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the prevalence of consanguineous marriage and chi-square test to compare prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of normal and deaf children. Descriptive analyses showed that 80 out of 130 [61.54%] parents who had deaf children have had consanguineous marriage. Furthermore data analysis demonstrated that prevalence of consanguineous marriage was significantly higher among parents of deaf children [p<0.001]. Consanguineous marriage plays a major role in expression of recessive genes and could lead to development of various handicaps including deafness. Increasing couples' awareness about consequences of consanguineous marriage and conducting genetic counseling are indispensable.

[Employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community]

Regarding the importance of employment in social and emotional status of individuals, it would be important for the deaf. The purpose of the present study was to assess the employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community. This descriptive study was performed on all members of Tehran deaf community. A researchers-made questionnaire which had three parts [demographic information, employment status of the deaf members and their attitudes regarding employment] was used in this study. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive methods. Majority of deaf community members were adult [ages ranging between 18 and 30]. Sixty eight of them [52.5%] were female and 53 [47.5%] were male, from our participants, 56.2% were unemployed and 43.8% were employed. Main problems were: having no access to facilities regarding their disability [14.5%], communication problems [9.4%], lower salaries because of their disability [12.4%], being far from the working place [15.4%], disproportion of working environment to their disability [11.4%], maltreatment of their coworkers [13.2%], maltreatment of their employer [12.5%] and discrimination because of their disability [11.2%], the attitudes of the deaf members were positive regarding the employment in all areas: 90% of them considered it as an essential part of life versus 10% of them mentioned not very important issue. Our findings showed that most of the deaf were supported by their family members, but not by the social facilities or their past education. The social policies should be reformed to support employment of the deaf