Male Involvement in Reproductive and Sexual Health: A Systematic Review of Iranian Litreture

A fter the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, the old paradigm of population control changed to sexual and reproductive health and family planning. This paradigm shift brought the change in attitude toward new policies on reproductive health in the world. By araising new concept of reproductive health beyond the issues of women health, reproductive health was identified as a priority for development; and men’s involvement in reproductive health became an important issue in this new paradigm. The aim of this study was to review Iranian recent studies on male involvement in sexual and reproductive health Articles published in national or international journals were reviewed. A literature search was carried out based on the ICPD’s criteria on male involvement in sexual and reproductive behavior using the key words: "male involvement" and "family planning, contraception, unwanted pregnancy, high risk pregnancy, prenatal care, delivery and postpartum care, abortion, child care, Iran" in the PubMed, Elsevier, SID, Medlib, Magiran, Iranmedex, Irandoc, and Google Scholar. I n recent years, male participation in family planning was more taken into consideration. After that, prenatal care has received attention. There are many research gaps in the area including explaining the sexual and reproductive needs from men’s views, designing and implementing appropriate intervention strategies, exploring the socialization process of boys, defining and implementing appropriate learning strategies, fostering sense of responsibility towards oneself and family health, and male participating in pregnancy care, delivery and postpartum.