Determinants of Male Involvement in Family Planning Services: A Case Study in the Tema Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

Background: Usage of family planning services in developing countries has been found to avert unintended pregnancies, and drastically reduce maternal and child mortality. Men as the main decision-makers in most of African families have an important role to play towards acceptance of family planning methods; however, its usage still remains low. The primary ob-jective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence male in-volvement in family planning. Method: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted within the Tema Metropolis in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The chosen research approach provided an oppor-tunity to interact with adult male respondents to access their perceived factors that contribute to their level of involvement in family planning programs. A stratified sampling technique was used to recruit 227 partici-pants aged (19 - 58) years using a well-structured questionnaire. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses were respectively conducted to estimate frequencies, measure the level of associations and predict outcomes on selected variables outputs. Results: The study revealed that a little over two-thirds (68.72%) of the respondents disagreed that total family planning is an issue for only women. The majority (83.26%) of the respondents, said their communities accept the act of men accompanying their wives or partners for family planning services, though 36.12% of them reported that their family and friends see it strange for men to attend family planning with their wives/partners. Among the 34.4% of respondents who reported ever attending any such family planning clinic, 56.41% have attended just once. Marital status, employment status and knowledge about family planning of respondents were positively associated with male involvement in family planning (p-value