Involvement in family planning service utilization and associated factors among married men at Debre Tabor town, Northwest Ethiopia, 2017

Abstract

Introduction: men´s involvement in family planning (FP) can be either as a user of male contraceptive methods and/or support of the male partners. In some developing countries, levels of communication on this issue is low for decision-making. Unmet need for FP suggested that unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion are the main causes of maternal mortality in Ethiopia. Men’s involvement in family planning is very important to improve women´s health in particular and reproductive health in general.

Methods: the community based cross-sectional study design was conducted to assess men´s involvement in family planning service and associated factors among married men at Debre Tabor town. A simple random sampling method was used to include 382 married males. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire. The data were entered into Epi Info 7 and were analyzed using SPSS version 21 statistical software package.

Results: from three hundred and eighty-two participants, 373 participated yielding a 97.6% response rate. The age range of the participants´ was from 20 to 65 years, the mean age was 38.6 with the standard deviation of ±7.8. The majority of the participants were Orthodox followers 358 (96%). About 33.2% of them were greater than secondary education level. The magnitude of male involvement in family planning was 254 (68.1%), 370 (99.2%) of the participants had information on different family planning methods. Adjusting all other factors for the final model, educational status AOR = 2.39 [1.084, 5.260], source of information AOR [95%CI] = 1.88 [1.016, 3.485], men’s approval AOR [95%CI] = 0.07 [0.036, 0.134], ever used contraceptive AOR [95%CI] = 0.21 [0.064, 0.705] were found to be associated with men’s involvement.

Conclusion: the level of male involvement was moderate, but their actual utilization is low.