Educational Needs of Fathers about Boys Puberty Period and Its Related Factors

The person in puberty period encounters multiple physical, psychological and social changes. With attention to the important role of parents about this, this study aims to determine the educational needs of fathers about boys puberty period. This is a cross-sectional and analytical study which was done on 324 subjects in Gonabad city in 2010. The instrument was a research-made questionnaire consisting of four parts: demographic data, to assess knowledge about puberty changes in boys, to assess attitude about behavioral changes and parents – adolescent's interaction and about physical and sexual health issues in adolescence. The data were analyzed by statistical software SPSS version 16 using qui-square, Kendall's tau and Pearson correlation test at the significance level of p<0.05. None of fathers had desirable knowledge. 60 (18.5%) of fathers had good opinion about psychological-behavioral health and communication with adolescence and 40 (12.3%) have good opinion on physical and sexual health issues of their children. Knowledge and attitude of fathers had a significant correlation with the father's education and occupation (p<0.001). Based on the study results, parents seem to need necessary education in this subject so that they can help their children for healthy transition in this critical period.