Promoting family planning through mass media in Nigeria: campaigns using public service announcements and a national logo.

In December 1992 in three Nigerian states a follow-up survey was conducted with women aged 15-49 and men aged 15-65 to assess the impact of the public service announcement (PSA) and the National Child Spacing Logo campaigns on family planning attitudes intentions and behavior. 69% of all 1493 adults reported seeing the logo. 87% of them understood its meaning. 66% had remembered at least one PSA either spontaneously or with prompting. For all media persons in urban areas the target audience had greater exposure to family planning messages than those in rural areas. 42.4% of urban dwellers correctly interpreted the logo and spontaneously recalled a PSA whereas only 18.6% of rural dwellers did (p < 0.05). Television was the leading source of family planning information in urban areas. In rural areas the radio was the leading source. Six months after the national distribution of the logo materials (June 1992) the percentage of persons having very favorable attitudes toward family planning rose from 62% (April 1992) to 70% (p < 0.05). The most significant improvements were male responsibility for family planning and the positive influence of family planning on marital relationships. The percentage of persons who approved of family planning who would recommend it to someone else and who believed that their spouses and best friends would approve of their using family planning also increased. A higher percentage of respondents said that they had had a recent discussion with their spouses about family planning at follow-up than at baseline (44% vs. 38%). During June-December contraceptive usage increased from 24.5% to 32% (p < 0.05) with use of modern methods experiencing the greatest gains. The logistic regression controlled for education age gender religion parity and ownership of a radio or TV. It found that campaign exposure was positively associated with favorable attitudes towards family planning communication between spouses and current contraceptive use.