الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Female Genital Cutting is a hannful practice which affects all aspects of women’s
health negatively. It is an extreme form of violence against women which violates their
fundamental human rights and impedes their ability to fully participate in public life.
According to EHIS 2015, 87% of all Egyptian women age 15-49 years have undergone
FGe. The survey also clarified the dangerous issue facing Egypt which is medicalization
of the practice. As health care providers, mainly physicians conducted 78% of FGC
procedure among girls aged from 0-14 years. Such fmding highlights the negative and
unexpected role of health care providers, as they supposed to protect people instead of
harming them.
Health care providers, especially PHSPs represent an important sector in the health
care delivery system due to their privileged position, as they are the primary
communicators with the public. They can play an important role in raising public
awareness toward combating FGC through transferring appropriate health messages to the
public and inspiring them to change their inappropriate behavior and bring the desired
behavioral change. On the other hand, jf health services providers do not represent a role
model and do not comply with healthy behavioral patterns they cannot by any means help
o transfer the appropriate healthy messages to the public. On the contrary, they will be
contributing negatively in propagating the wrong practices.
Accordingly, this study was conducted to explore and compare attitudes of PHSPs,
including nurses and physicians in two distinct Egyptian governorates, namely Alexandria
and El Behera. Studying the attitudes of this important sector of the society is an important
step toward successful elimination of this harmful practice. It can be a precursor to
imparting positive changes of PHSPs’ behavior and consequently that of the public.
Furthermore, this study sought to determine factors which favor continuation or
discontinuation of FGC which should be considered in developing and implementing
strategies to eliminate this inhuman practice.