Educational Attainment and Personal Willingness to Undergo Safe Male Circumcision Among Young Men in Rural Uganda.

Previous models have demonstrated that high uptake of male circumcision (MC) will be required if the procedure is to have a significant public health impact in sub-Saharan African countries (Nagelkerke et al., 2007). Therefore, research about the determinants of uptake of MC among different groups is warranted. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between educational attainment and personal willingness to undergo safe male circumcision (SMC) in rural Uganda.

In this study, we surveyed 297 participants (aged 18-24) in three rural districts. Additionally, we conducted focus group discussions with between 8-12 participants in each of these districts.

We found that circumcision prevalence and characteristics of those who are circumcised were similar to findings shown elsewhere. Additionally, we found that personal willingness to undergo SMC was lower among respondents with higher educational attainment [OR (crude) = 0.28; p=0.002; CI: 0.12-0.62]. This odds ratio remained statistically significant when we adjusted for demographic confounders [OR = 0.20; p=0.001; CI: 0.08-0.52]. We did not observe any significant difference in willingness between those who had no educational attainment and those who had completed primary education only [OR= 0.90; p=0.89; CI: 0.22-3.68].

We conclude that young men with higher education are less willing to undergo SMC than their less educated peers. In addition, our qualitative results indicate that inadequate information about SMC, among those with higher education, might explain this difference in willingness to undergo the procedure.