Male involvement is crucial to female contraceptive use. This study examined how male knowledge and cultural perceptions of
modern female contraceptives influence involvement in contraceptive use. A cross-sectional survey of 389 men from Ayete,
Nigeria was used to regress a continuous male involvement score on demographic variables, knowledge of at least one method of
modern female contraception and a scored male perception variable using Ordinary Least Squares regression. Controlling for
perception, the knowledge of at least one method of modern female contraception was not significantly associated with a change
in male involvement (p=0.264). Increasing positive perception was associated with higher male involvement scores (p=0.001).
Higher educated males, those with a current desire to have children and males whose partners were currently using a method had
greater male involvement scores (p<0.05). Policy and intervention efforts should be focused on changing cultural perceptions, in
addition to providing in-depth knowledge of contraceptive methods.