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KMID : 0353019760130010173
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Korean Journal of Public Health
1976 Volume.13 No. 1 p.173 ~ p.181
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A Case Study on the Impact of Mothers´Clubs on Family Planning Communication in Korean Villages
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Abstract
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Mothers´ clubs are local groups of women organized as a means of promoting the diffusion of family planning. One of the basic assumptions underlying the family planning program through mothers´ clubs is that they favorably affect the pattern of communication on family planning among village women so as to improve the program performance. This study is an attempt to examine the validity of the assumption.
Thus two hypotheses were proposed for this study:
1. There would be differences in the pattern of family planning communication between the villae with mothers´ club and the village without mothers´ club.
2. The impact of mothers´ club on family planning communication would result in the higher level of family planning knowledge, favorable attitude, and practice in the village with mothers´ club than in the village without mothers´ club.
In order to test these hypotheses, this study has made comparative anylyses of general characteristics, family planning status, and family planning communication network of the women in two villages, one with mothers´ club and the other without mothers´ club.
This study used part of the data collected for the study of family planning IEC activites by the School of Public Health, Seoul National University in November 1974. In the communication network analysis, the method proposed by William Richards, Jr. was used.
The findings confirmed the hypotheses as generally valid. The village with mothers´ club showed the communication network which had only three isolates and three distinguishable cliques with six bridge agents. On the other hand, the village without mothers´ club had no distinguishable clique and seven isolates. In the light of the tabooness of family planning topics in communication, the communication structure with divided small cliques, supposedly composed of more intimate group members, would be adequate for the diffusion of family planning information.
It was observed that the women in the village with mothers´ club have higher level of family planning knowledge and favorable attitude. However, little defference was found in family planning pratice rate between two villages. This may have been resulted from the fact that family planning practice is associated with many other factors than knowledge of and attitude toward contraceptive methods.
It should be noted that this study is too limited in scope and scale to obtain general conclusions. This suggests that more extensive study is required to provide information on the nature and mechanism of the impact of mothers´ clubs on family planning behavior of village women.
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