Background:
It is recommended that preconception care be provided in the context of primary health care, and that providers encourage women and men to formulate a “reproductive life plan” addressing desires to have or not have children, and timing of any desired children. Questions or tools that promote reproductive life planning have not been systematically implemented or evaluated in the primary care setting.

Objectives:
To explore the acceptability and utility of integrating reproductive planning questions into primary health care encounters for female and male outpatients.

Methods:
A purposive sampling strategy was used to select adult African-American and Hispanic female (n1 = 72) and male (n2 = 72) outpatients from public-supported clinics along 2 critical axes: age (< 35 years, ≥ 35 years), and type of visit (preventive, acute, chronic). As part of the nursing intake, outpatients were asked a series of questions to elicit and/or promote reproductive planning. Patients' written responses were attached to the medical record for providers' use. After the encounter, patients were asked their opinions about the reproductive planning questions. Additionally, a focus group of primary care providers (n3 = 10) was convened to elicit providers' opinions about receiving the responses to reproductive planning questions during the encounter. Verbatim responses were audio-recorded and transcribed into text files. Content analysis was used to qualitatively analyze responses.

Results:
Nearly all female patients viewed the reproductive planning questions as acceptable and helpful. Most African-American male patients viewed the questions as ‘out of place' and not relevant to their care, but some younger males displayed interest in learning about effective contraception. Many Hispanic men viewed the questions as relevant to them, and displayed interest in learning about promoting healthy birth outcomes. Primary care providers viewed reproductive planning questions as having high utility and relevancy to the care of female, but not male, patients.

Conclusion and implications for practice:
Questions to promote reproductive planning were viewed as acceptable and useful to female patients and their primary care providers, but were viewed as having limited utility to most male patients and their providers. Educational outreach should promote the role of men in pregnancy planning and healthy pregnancy outcomes.