Increasing Men`s Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding Family Planning Through Their Wives` Group Counseling in Zahedan, Iran

This study was done to explore the effect of women`s group counseling on knowledge, attitude and practice of their husbands concerning family planning in Zahedan in 2002. A quasi-experimental study (before and after) was carried out. Forty-four married women with two or more children who had not used contraceptive methods were non-randomly selected from three Health Centers. Before intervention, women and their husbands were interviewed to complete a questionnaire to determine their educational needs, then the women attend three sessions in 5 8-9 member groups. One month after intervention they were asked to complete the same questionnaire and a check list was filled. The mean score, Standard Deviation (SD), paired t-test, Mc-nemar and Chi-square were used for analysis. The finding showed significant difference between the mean scores of knowledge (p<0.001) and attitude (p<0.001) of both of women and their husbands before and after intervention. Moreover, 43% of the couples used one of the modern contraceptive methods after intervention (p<0.00001). Statistic paired t-test with p<0.001 showed that the difference between the knowledge and attitude scores before and after the intervention is significant. Moreover, 43% of the couples used one of the methods after intervention (p<0.00001). According to the results, wives` counseling is recommended to enhance men involvement and to improve family planning programs.