PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Olivia Stransky
AU  - Nicole Hunt
AU  - John Steuart Richards
AU  - Mehret Birru Talabi
TI  - Exploring Family Planning, Parenting, and Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Experiences of Men With Rheumatic Diseases
AID  - 10.3899/jrheum.210785
DP  - 2022 Mar 01
TA  - The Journal of Rheumatology
PG  - 251--255
VI  - 49
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/49/3/251.short
4100  - http://www.jrheum.org/content/49/3/251.full
SO  - J Rheumatol2022 Mar 01; 49
AB  - Objective To explore family planning, parenting, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care needs and experiences of men with rheumatic diseases.Methods Men aged 18–45 years who were diagnosed with at least 1 rheumatic disease and used at least 1 antirheumatic drug were recruited from rheumatology clinics. Research coordinators engaged participants in semistructured phone interviews. A codebook was developed based on the interview transcripts and used to conduct an inductive thematic analysis.Results Participants ranged in age from 22 to 44 years (n = 20). Most were heterosexual and had at least 1 child. The most common disease diagnoses were spondyloarthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Four themes emerged from the interviews: (1) Men had family planning concerns, particularly related to the heritability of their diseases, their fertility, and potential effects of their medications on their offspring’s health. (2) Men felt that fatigue, disability, and/or pain from their diseases either impaired or would impair their abilities to parent. (3) Men often did not discuss sexual dysfunction with their rheumatologists, even when they believed that it arose from their diseases or antirheumatic drugs. (4) Men rarely discussed any family planning, parenting, or SRH issues with their rheumatologists; gender discordance with rheumatologists did not affect men’s comfort in discussing these issues.Conclusion Men expressed concerns related to family planning, parenting, and SRH, which they rarely discussed with their rheumatologists. Our study suggests that some men’s SRH information needs are incompletely addressed in the rheumatology clinical setting.