Publication:

Knowledge, attitude and practices regarding no scalpel vasectomy in married men attending urban and rural health facilities in Maharashtra, India

Background India will soon surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by 2022. Though India was the first to launch family planning in 1952, population stabilization remains a distant dream. No scalpel vasectomy (NSV) is a modified and sophisticated technique of vasectomy which can be performed in low resource settings. However, acceptance of NSV is declining in India including Maharashtra. Hence a study was conducted to evaluate factors affecting acceptance of NSV amongst married men visiting urban and rural health facilities of Maharashtra.

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted amongst randomly selected 50 married males of 21 years old and above each in conveniently selected urban and rural health centre under a medical college. After obtaining written informed consent from the participants, data was collected from November to December 2018 with the help of semi structured questionnaire. Socio-demographic information, knowledge, attitude and practices were entered and analyzed in Epi Info 7. Study was approved by the institutional ethics committee.

Results Majority (60%) of men attending the urban health care setup knew about NSV compared to those attending rural set up (34%). More number of participants from rural area (62%) were of opinion that NSV affects sexual performance as compared to urban area (44%). Willingness to recommend NSV to others was 62% and 32% in urban and rural men respectively. None of the participants (0%) underwent NSV.

Conclusions There is a huge gap between knowledge, attitude and practices regarding NSV in the study participants. It shows a need to revise strategies for its promotion.