Married men’s involvement in family planning – A study from coastal Southern India

Background: Over the years, India has emerged as one of the most populous countries in the world, next only to China. Unregulated fertility can compromise the economic development and political stability of a country. Family planning was always thought to be a woman’s prerogative, especially in a male dominant society like India. Consequently, most of the studies on family planning focused on women as the subject of interest. Purpose: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of family planning amongst men who have been married for at least five years. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the teaching hospitals of Kasturba Medical College (Manipal University), Mangalore; India among 156 men who had been married for at least five years. They were selected using non-random sampling method and were interviewed using a pretested semi structured validated questionnaire. Chi-square test was used for statistical analyses. Results: Overall, 75.6% were aged between 26 and 34 years, 41.7% had one child, 92.3% subjects from upper and 86.9% from lower socio-economic status were aware about the male family planning services available in the market. Most husbands preferred that their spouse should be sterilized (53.8%). Family planning methods were actively practiced by 71.2 %. Conclusion: Most of the studies on family planning have focused mainly on females. This study throws light on the male perspective of family planning. Our study subjects were well aware about various family planning services and their attitude towards family planning was favorable, but the number of men practicing family planning was not high.