Towards healthy family planning attitude: a self persuasion approach.
Balogun S. K · PubMed · 1990
The potential usefulness of improvisational techniques in changing deeply embedded pronatalist attitudes was assessed in an exercise involving University of Ibadan students. The students were instructed to write an essay in support of family planning. To assist them, 4 statements were provided to the students as guidelines: 1) birth control is the best way to create a happy family; 2) family planning can reduce the burden created by overly large family size; 3) family planning has the potential to raise the standard of living of African families; and 4) overpopulation is at a critical point in Nigeria. It was hypothesized that these arguments, which are counter to those prevalent in Nigeria, would force students to critically examine their thinking and lead to some attitudinal conversion. In addition, some students were given a pretest before and/or after writing the essay that asked their opinion on 5 items: 1) family planning is alien to African culture; 2) excessive childbearing is unhealthy for families and the society; 3) the government should enact antinatalist legislation; 4) there is no present need for large families; and 5) family planning is essential to provide children with a good education. Although students who wrote the essays developed stronger support for all items except number 3, the change in attitudes was not statistically significant. The attitude changes were greatest among the subset of students who took the test before writing the essay and thus were sensitized to the issues. Males, Christians, and older students were more likely to be supportive of family planning than their counterparts. Although this technique was not very effective in this study, its evaluation in other populations is suggested.