Study of knowledge and attitudes of male staff about vasectomy in health centers of Birjand University of Medical Sciences, 2010-2011

Although male's participation in family planning programs improves living standards and national development, just a few men welcome these programs. Based on this preface, the present study was conducted to determine level of knowledge and attitudes of male staff working in health centers of Birjand University of Medical Sciences about Vasectomy. This descriptive and analytical study was performed on 247 male employees of health centers of Birjand in 2010 and the data was collected through questionnaires including three parts: personal data, knowledge gauge and attitude gauge. Those were filled in by married men who had been chosen by census-based method and then the collected Data was analyzed through SPSS software and descriptive statistical methods. Based on findings obtained from the personal information, 30.4% of people who had taken part in this survey were less than 30 years old, 36% of them were between 31 and 40 and 33.6% were over 40. People who had graduate diploma were the most frequent and those above the Bachelors were the least frequent with the quota of 48.6% and 6.1 % respectively. 53.8% of the individuals had no college education and 2% had an academic degree. The results also showed that 21.4% and 54.3% of people participating in this survey, had poor awareness and average knowledge respectively and 24.3% of whole were well aware. The results also revealed that 44.5 and 25.2% of people -who were asked in this survey- had poor and average attitude respectively and 29.6% of the whole had good attitude. Besides, there was a significant relationship between the individual's level of awareness and their income (P=0.001). The results showed that there is also a significant relationship among individual's attitude, amount of income, (P=0.001) and the length of their marriage (P=0.01). According to the results of the present study it seems necessary to devise a plan in order to enhance men's awareness and attitudes about vasectomy. It would not be practical except through classes and training programs to create incentive among men to increase their awareness and performance.