Prevalence of male factor infertility and associated factors in couples seeking fertility Care at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> Infertility affects 10-15% of the couples in their reproductive age. Infertility is related to male factors in 40% of cases and female factors in 40% of the cases. Infertility is a critical component of reproductive health, and has often been neglected in these efforts. The inability to have children affects men and women across the globe. However, unlike female infertility, male infertility is not well reported in general. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of male infertility and associated factors among infertile couples at St. Paul’s hospital millennium medical college.</p> <p><strong>Methods:</strong> A hospital based cross sectional study was conducted at St. Paul’s hospital millennium medical college fertility center, Addis Ababa from March 11/2021– June 11/2021. The study recruited 354 couples and male partner was approached for interview by consecutive sampling method.&nbsp; Data collected by trained data collectors using a structured questionnaire. The data entered and analyzed by Ms-excel and statistical package for social science software version 25. Bi-variable and Multi-variable analysis was done to assess the presence of associations in between independent and dependent variables.</p> <p><strong>Result: </strong>Among studied 354 male partners 221(62.4%) had male factor infertility, of this 84.7% was primary infertility. The commonest sperm parameter abnormality was found to be Azoospermia, followed by Asthenozoospermia. There was association between income, level of education, history of STI, smoking, chewing khat, Diabetes, Hypertension and BMI, but on multivariable analysis, only chewing khat had statistically significant association with male infertility, (AOR 2.117, CI(1.119-4.005), P value 0.021.</p> <p><strong>Conclusion and Recommendation</strong><strong>:</strong> prevalence male factor infertility was high due emphasis should be given to it. Unlike the finding of majority of literature azoospermia was the commonest sperm parameter abnormality. Public awareness creation regarding, high prevalence of male factor infertility and harmful effect of khat consumption on male fertility. Further study should be done to determine cause and associated factors of azoospermia.</p>