Abstract:

Background: Family planning (FP) is the means of controlling population other than diseases, war and disasters which can be natural or manmade. Globally, the use of modern methods of family planning has been on increase in several parts especially Asia and Latin America. This allows people to get their desired number of children and determine the spacing of pregnancy, hence this help to control population and ensure each family’s access to limited resource.

Objective: Evaluating male participation in family planning among male of reproductive age in Sengerema District, Mwanza region..

Methodology: A cross sectional study, was conducted among 400 men of reproductive age in Sengerema District, who were available to their households during the study. Participants were requested to fill in Swahili version questionnaire that had questions on assessing awareness of family planning methods among women in reproductive age. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20.

Results: Respondents for about 49.9% don’t participates in family planning while 48.9% they participate. it seems that people are not involving in family planning simply because culture and beliefs have a greater influence to majority of people on low utilization of family planningAbout 45.1% of the respondent culture and religion allow the use of methods of family planning, 49.4% don’t allow the use of family planning methods. About 5.2% of the respondents don’t know.

Conclusion: Based on the finding of the study, there is low utilization of family planning among men of reproductive age in Sengerema district despite of high level of awareness about methods of family planning. Based on the results people are not involving in family planning simply because culture and religion beliefs hinders them from using family planning methods also men’s’ altitudes hinder utilization of family planning because most of them think family planning is for women only and not for men.

Recommendation; Since information was an important determinant, this implies that if we are to make a successful move toward high utilization of family planning methods among men of reproductive age then education is inevitable. It has to reach point where education about family planning make people perceive family planning beyond child spacing and important incorporate how it affects family’s economic status. It is also important to provide family planning education to school children, through them message can easily be delivered to their parents and they grow up with family planning knowledge it will be easy for them to control fertility.