Women's and men's views and knowledge on male participation in reproductive health in iraq

Reproductive health for women is essential to mothers, babies, families, and the community as a whole. The study was planned in a descriptive cross-sectional design to describe and compare women's and men's views on male participation in reproductive health in Iraq. The study was conducted in Iraq in a women's ward on the third floor of a private nursing home hospital. The women of the sample were in the consulting clinic in Baghdad teaching hospital / Medical City in Baghdad between 1 February 2022 and 10 July 2022. Samples for this study were collected through individual interviews. The sample sizes consisted of 100 Iraqi married men and 100 women. Data analysis in this study was conducted by using SPSS version (22.0). The study used frequency, percentage, t-tests, and Chi-square to investigate the comparative study. This study concluded that the female participants had more knowledge and information about the justifications for abortion and family planning (FP) methods than the males. Most participating men know 73% but do not participate in reproductive health 60%. In this work, the violence in Iraq was also studied, and it was found that it is high. 47% of females strongly agree that violence against women is high in Iraqi society, and 37% of males agree that violence against women is high. Moreover, the most common type of violence in Iraq is verbal (65%), followed by physical violence (55%), as investigated in the views of the study. However, there is no significant difference between the reproductive health issue and the mean score of females and males (t=1.011, p=0.313). The study concluded that most of the participating men have the knowledge, but they do not participate in reproductive health, and the study also concluded that violence is high in Iraqi society, and the females and males agreed that determining the number of children in the family is the responsibility of both sexes and that the role and patterns of the family for both sexes similar. The study concluded that men are often able to use family planning methods, and participants stressed the need to take measures to protect against STDs. It is recommended to spread awareness about reproductive rights and reproductive health for males and females and to increase male participation in reproductive health in Iraq.