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  • Title: Attitudes to vasectomy among rural and urban African men.
    Author: Goldstuck ND, England MJ, Dukes IA.
    Journal: Adv Contracept Deliv Syst; 1988; 4(2-3):235-41. PubMed ID: 12281617.
    Abstract:
    The authors analyzed the responses of 79 rural workers (farm laborers) and 62 urban workers (gold miners) to a questionnaire on attitudes to vasectomy. There were no statistically significant differences in the personal characteristics of the 2 groups, with the exception of education level. The urban workers were significantly higher educated than those in the rural areas. Furthermore, the rural community wanted more than 2-3 children, were less aware of their church's attitude to contraception, and their wives were more likely to practice contraception. The urban community were more aware of what vasectomy and female sterilization entailed. Both the urban and rural men feared loss of manhood following the procedure and feared that their wives would become unfaithful to them and that they would lose dominance over their families. Both groups believed that a pregnant wife was more likely to remain faithful to them. Vasectomy is a safe, simple surgical sterilization procedure for men. Failure rates are low and complications are rare. Despite this, vasectomy is not widely used as a method of contraception in most countries. Although very widely used in the US, the United Kingdom, China, and India, it is not the case in most other countries. While its use may be growing in central and South America, this is not the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes South Africa. The Association of Voluntary Sterilization of South Africa is attempting to popularize sterilization as a means of contraception among both sexes and among all racial groups in South Africa. At the present, there are fewer than 10,000 vasectomies being performed in South Africa each year, in country where the population growth rate if about 2.5% and the total population is now over 35 million. The present study compares the attitudes of rural and urban unskilled and semiskilled working men to vasectomy in order to help discover areas of possible misgivings and misunderstandings. It is also attempting to help provide the type of literature and visual information which would encourage acceptance of this method or irreversible contraception.
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