Males’ involvement in fertility treatment in Ejisu municipality in the Ashanti region of Ghana
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Date
November, 2019
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Abstract
Background
Infertility is a global challenge confronting couples and even partners in consensual
unions. Efforts to address the phenomena has largely focused on females to the
neglect of men who ought to be equally brought on board as key players. Therefore,
there is a need for empirical evidence on the determinant of male involvement in
fertility treatment.
Methods
The study adopted a quantitative approach using a cross-sectional study design. The
study population was 423 married men selected using a simple random sampling
technique. A structured questionnaire was administered to the participants and data
were analysed using STATA 15. Statistical significance for all testing was set as 0.05.
Results
The study identified that most of the respondents (57.45%) had their education to the
secondary level and more than half of the respondents (50.12 %) knew the correct
definition of what infertility is. Majority of the respondents (76.83%) agreed that
financial constraints and stigmatization (61.94%) were some of the challenges
affecting males’ involvement in fertility treatment. Socio-demographic characteristics
of married men such as marriage type (p-value=0.00), level of education (pvalue=0.01), employment status (p-value=0.04), occupation (Public service worker,
p-value=0.04; trading, p-value=0.02), Monthly income (GH 3001 and above, pvalue=0.04), religion (p-value=0.03) and ethnic group (Ewe, p-value=0.01; Nzema, pvalue=0.02) influenced males’ involvement in fertility treatment.
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Moreover, reproductive characteristics of married men such as ever been able to
impregnate their wives (p-value=0.00), ever been able to impregnate another woman
(p-value=0.00), and number of children (4-6 children, p-value=0.02) influenced their
level of involvement in fertility treatment.
Conclusion
Majority of married men believed that infertility is the problem of both couples
however; they were reluctant to accompany their wives for treatment since they saw it
as a sole responsibility of their wives. Therefore, married men should be educated by
the Ejisu Municipal Health Directorate to accompany their wives for treatment since
it would involve both for complete management.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, College of Health Sciences, School of Public Health, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Award of Master of Public Health Degree in Population and Reproductive Health.
Keywords
Males’ involvement, Fertility treatment, Ejusi