[Knowledge, attitude and practice of married men referring to health centers of Shahre-Kord on family planning]

ABSTRACT

Fulfilling family planning programs has a very important role in the reduction of fertility resulting in solving population problems. Women have been the subject of the most of these studies, while men have been less discussed. The aim of this study is to determine men's knowledge, attitude and practice on family planning in health centers of Shahre-kord. Cross-sectional methods was used and 402 men were selected through the simple sampling. Questionnaires were completed by professional interviewers. SPSS was used to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that 100% of men know at least one of the family planning methods. The highest knowledge was related to pills [96.3%]. Conviction on the necessity of family planning programmes was reported by 99.1% of the people. At least one method of family planning was used by one of the couples in 89.6% cases. At the time of study, 83.1% of people were using one of the family planning methods. The most common method used by the people was the pills, reported by 57.7% of the cases. On the whole, the research demonstrates that 34.4% have high ,%54 have reasonable and%23 have low knowledge. In terms of attitudes of men towards family planning methods,%6.5 have a positive,%68.2 medium and%7 have low conviction.%12.7 use these methods in large,%69.7 in medium,%17.2 in low scales. There is a significant relationship between KAP of men and age, time of marriage, occupation, level of education and length of their marriage [p<0.001]. This research concludes that although men have high knowledge about family planning, they do not use it in real life very often. As a result, it is necessary to consider them as a target group in family planning programs. In addition, men's family planning services should be integrated into family planning programs which are put forward by the National Health System Network