Effect of educational intervention on male participation in family planning in Iran

Abstract

Traditionally, family planning programme has viewed women as the primary clients. Recently, need for male participation in family planning has been highlighted but there are limited efforts to bring the reproductive male population to accept contraceptives. A quasi-experiment has been designed enrolling randomly 268 married men from the health centres in Iran. Data on awareness, beliefs, attitude and co-operation in adopting family planning methods were recorded from men using a pre-tested schedule before and after 14 sessions of educational intervention. Most of the males were aware of at least one contraceptive method but awareness of modern methods was poor (20%) which was increased after intervention (47%). Their willingness to allow their wives to use contraceptive also increased but the improvement was not statistically significant (p=0.08). Use of contraceptive remains low in men even after intervention. Family planning education could increase the knowledge of men about modern contraceptives but the use of contraceptives by male may not increase which indicates that behaviour change process may take longer time to have effect.