Factors Related to the Motivation of Childbearing in Married Couples of Mazandaran Province Using Mixed Regression Model

Background and purpose: In recent years, there has been a decrease in the fertility rate in the country, including in Mazandaran province. A reduction in population growth led to economic, social, and cultural changes and a decrease in the political and military power of the country. Therefore, the goal of this study is to analyze the mixed regression model of the factors related to the motivation of childbearing in couples referring to the health centers of Mazandaran province. Materials and methods: This cross-sectional-analytical study was conducted in four cities of Mazandaran province between October and March 2022 on 468 couples using a multi-stage sampling method. Data collection was done with socio-demographic questionnaires, Naghibi et al. motivation childbearing, and Rammstedt and John Neo Personality Questionnaire. Data analysis was done with SPSS version 22 software. The significance level was considered 0.05 in all tests. Statistical indicators of number and percentage were used to describe qualitative variables, and mean and standard deviation were used for quantitative variables. To investigate the effect of all factors on the couple's motivation to have children, given that the study is a couple, a mixed linear regression model was used using the regression method. Results: In this study, the response rate was 93.2%, and the final analysis was performed on the information obtained from 468 couples. The mean and standard deviation of the age of women and men were 35.64±6.76 and 39.75±8.29, respectively, and the length of marriage was 12.85±7.81. In this study, 261 (55.8%) housewives, 167 (35.7%) working men, 329 (71.3%) of women with a history of cesarean section, 54 (11.5%) of childless couples and 372 (79.5 percent) of the couples lived in the urban. The mean score of motivation childbearing for women and men was 60.82±9.36 and 60.58±8.29, respectively. Based on the adapted regression coefficient, couples with favorable socioeconomic status (P<0.001, β=-4.89) and somewhat favorable (P<0.001, β=-2.29) compared to people with unfavorable socioeconomic status have less motivation for childbearing. Also, people with extroverted personality traits (P<0.001, β=-50.0) had less motivation for childbearing than people with other personality traits. The results showed that with the increase in the years of life together, the couple's motivation for childbearing decreases (P<0.001, β=-0.11). While the couples who expressed that they wanted more children (P<0.001, β=14.63) and had a preference for a son (P<0.05, β=1.41) had more motivation for childbearing. In this study, there was no statistically significant difference between the score of motivation childbearing of urban and rural couples. Conclusion: This study has shown that individual and social factors such as socioeconomic status, length of the marriage, and personality traits affect the motivation to have children, so that in extroverted couples with a favorable socioeconomic status, the motivation to have children decreases with increasing years of marriage, so policymakers and Health planners should pay more attention to extroverted couples in the first years of marriage.