Male involvement in family planning in Zanzibar: a case study of West District

This study investigates the involvement of males in family planning (FP) IN West District Zanzibar. The township wards (Kiembe Samaki, Mwera and Mtoni) and countryside (Dole and Kianga) wards were selected for this study because there is interaction of people with different social – economic activities. Mixed method approach comprising both qualitative studies was used to interview 263 married men aged 20-49 years. Purposive sampling was used to obtain five wards and Probability proportional to Size (PPS) sampling was used to obtain the number of sample respondents for each ward. Also, systematic sampling was used to obtain respondents from households in those wards. Focus group interviews were conducted among the men who consented to participate in the study. Four groups each of ten married men and one group of eleven married men were selected. The findings indicate that knowledge of family planning methods among men was very hung and there were high percentages of discussion of the uses of family planning between men and their wives. The study also found that there is strong relationship between number of children desired with education and income. This relationship was confirmed by the application of the Chi-square test. The study demonstrated that the main reason of using family planning method for men was the sake of the health of the mother and the children. Attitudes towards sex composition preferred son to daughter. For the attitudes towards safe reproductive behavior participants agreed that there are health-related risks to mothers and children.