Characteristics of no-scalpel vasectomy patients in Jakarta, Indonesia
Background: This study aims to learn the demographic and surgical characteristics of patients who underwent no-scalpel vasectomy in Indonesia and to compare patient’s demographic characteristics before and after legal pronouncement/fatwa issued by Indonesia Ulema Council in July 2012. Methods: This is a retrospective study that collected data from the vasectomy medical records of patients who underwent no-scalpel vasectomy between January 2010 and May 2017. A total of 1497 patients were included in this study. Results: The study found that patients’ age of 40-49 years old (42.8%), wives’ age of ≥ 35 years old (65.0%), having three children (34.3%), being Moslem (85.8%), high school graduated for patients (32.3%) and junior high school graduated for patients’ wives (25.7%), casual laborer (40.7%), and guided by family planning program officer (40.6%) were the most frequent characteristics found in patients undergoing no-scalpel vasectomy. There was a significant difference in certain characteristics before and after fatwa issuance, namely wives’ age, number of children, religion, patients’ and wives’ educational background and the person who guided patients to undergo vasectomy procedure. All no-scalpel vasectomy procedures were done using “Dr. Li’s three finger technique” with local infiltration anesthesia; the median length of procedure was 10 (7 – 90) minutes. This study also found that surgeon felt that more than 95% patients were easy to perform no-scalpel vasectomy procedure and this procedure had low complication rate. Conclusions: Even though there were significant proportional difference in some characteristics, this study considers that the fatwa was not the only factor that affected patients’ choice of no-scalpel vasectomy.