Men’s Health Week in Iran; the Discrepancy between Ex-perts and the General Population for Educational Priori-ties

With the obsoletion of the paternalistic model of the doctor-patient relationship, consideringpublic opinion regarding healthcare policymaking seems to be of great necessity. The present study was con-ducted to determine the educational priorities of male urology specialists and the general male population con-cerning urological diseases.

In this cross-sectional survey study, 400 male urologists and400 men from the general population were assessed. Our investigation was carried out using a seven-item ques-tionnaire covering the most important urological conditions. Respondents gathered from all over Iran throughthe 22nd Congress of Iranian Urological Association (IUA) and street surveys.

The mean age of the par-ticipants was 40.69±13.23. The mean age for the general population and urologists was 35.8±13.7 and 45.6±10.6 years, respectively (P=0.0001). 56.8% of the respondents from the general population had a university de-gree. Overall, erectile dysfunction and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were the most mentioned diseasesas an educational priority (40.1%). Chronic prostatitis was also the least mentioned condition as an educationalpriority in both groups and overall among all the participants (20.9%). A significant difference was observedbetween the general population and urologists in all the examined conditions (P<0.05).

This studyindicated the differences among the educational priorities of the general male population and male urologists,and the necessity to make these two points of view closer and to involve the opinion of general population indecision making for men’s health week educational topics.