Sumera Naz, Muhammad Arif Nadeem Saqib.
An assessment of the knowledge and attitude towards family planning among educated married men of urban Islamabad, Pakistan.
Pak J Med Res Jan ;56(3):73-7.

Background: Pakistan is the 6th most populous country of the world and also among one of the first Asian countries to begin family planning program yet the current contraceptive prevalence rates (CPR) stand at 35%. Men are the critically missing client as focus is always on women. Objectives: To assess the knowledge and attitude towards family planning by educated married men of Islamabad. Study design, settings and duration: Cross sectional study was conducted in twelve public and private sector organizations of Islamabad for duration of 12 months in 2014. Subjects and Methods: Total 300 educated married men age 20 to 60 years who had completed at least 12 years of formal education were enrolled after taking the informed written consent. Data was collected using a structured pre-tested questionnaire through an anonymous interview. Grading scale was used for knowledge and attitude evaluation. 10 marks were given to correct answer and agreement with positive statement. Score less than 70% is categorized as poor, 71-80% fair, 81-90% good and above 90% as very good. Results: Mean age of the study participants was 36 + 7 years. About 177 (59%) of the study participants were graduate. Nearly all (99%) participants had heard at least one family planning method while 141 (47%) had poor knowledge. Regarding male contraceptive methods, only 33 (11%) of the study participants know about the permanent birth control methods for men with a misconception that vasectomy decreases male’s sexual desire in 267 (89%) of participants. Meanwhile only 18 (6%) study participants are aware that condoms are available both for male and female use. About 193 (64%) study participants were currently using at least one family planning method in an order of with drawl (24%), male condom (13%), and injectables (9%) while 10% don’t know that their wives were currently using contraceptive methods or not. Only 3% of the males had poor attitude score. Among the positive attitude males, 99 (33%) had fair score. While 186 (62%) had good score while only 06 (2%) had very good score indicating that generally educated males have positive attitude towards family planning. Overall non response rate was very i.e. 32%. Conclusion: The study reveals positive attitude and poor knowledge of family planning methods among almost half of the study participants who are educated and are resident of urban Islamabad. High non response rate reflects that even educated men are very reluctant to talk and share information’s on this topic. Increased use of traditional and temporary family planning methods highlights that positive attitude does not always lead to use to contraceptives. Key words: Family planning, contraceptives, knowledge.

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