Lived experiences and opinions of women of sub-Saharan origin on female genital mutilation: A phenomenological study Martínez Linares, José Manuel López-Entambasaguas, Olga María Fernández-Medina, Isabel María Berthe-Kone, Ousmane Fernández-Sola, Cayetano Jiménez-Lasserrotte, María del Mar Hernández-Padilla, Jose Manuel Canet-Vélez, Olga female circumcision Female genital cutting female genital mutilation lived experiences qualitative study Aims and objectives: This study aimed to describe and understand the lived experi-ences and opinions of sub-Saharan women living in Spain in relation to female genital mutilation.Background: Female genital mutilation is a bloody procedure with serious conse-quences for the health of women and girls. Understanding mutilated women's lived experiences plays a crucial role in the management of health consequences and could help healthcare professionals to provide assistance to these women.Design: A descriptive phenomenological study was carried out. The COREQ checklist was followed as guidance to write the manuscript.Methods: A total of 12 in-depth interviews were conducted. Interviews were re-corded, transcribed and analysed using ATLAS.ti 9.0.Results: Two themes with four subthemes were identified from the data analysis: 1) ‘The traumatic experience of female circumcision’ with the subthemes ‘Female muti-lation is a physical and psychological torture procedure’ and ‘recognising and coping with negative emotions’; 2) ‘The fight for the eradication of female genital mutilation’ which contains the subthemes ‘the need for a real sociocultural change at the origin’ and ‘“I want to be the last”: Personal development leads to sociocultural change’.Conclusions: Female genital mutilation was experienced by women as a very aggres-sive and traumatic event. It causes considerable negative emotions that last over time. Although there is a tendency to reject the practice, in women's countries of origin, there is social pressure for girls to be mutilated. 2022-07-12T07:00:22Z 2022-07-12T07:00:22Z 2022-03-20 journal article http://hdl.handle.net/10481/75934 https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.16294 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Wiley