Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Attitudes Toward Consanguineous Marriage in Iran

This study aimed to investigate the community attitudes toward consanguineous marriage (CM) and their associated factors. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed through the social media platform Instagram (n = 4733). The community had a highly positive attitude toward CM (35.4%). The univariate analysis showed that positive attitude was lower among women, residents of Tehran and provincial centers, singles, offspring of biologically related marriages, and participants with high family income. Further, a significant inverse relationship existed between regular book-reading habits and positive attitudes. According to the final model (using the backward elimination method in multivariable logistic regression analysis), positive attitude was lower among participants who studied literary works after adjusting for sex, place of residence, educational level, marital status, and type of parental marriage (adjusted odds ratio = 0.63, 95% confidence interval = 0.52–0.77, P < 0.001). This study was novel in exploring the relationship between book-reading habits and attitudes toward CM. Our findings revealed a strong inverse relationship between studying literary works and positive attitudes.