Reproductive Health and Family Planning Behaviors in North West Nigeria: Effects of a Hausa Language Radio Drama

Fatou Jah, Population Media Center
Scott Connolly, Population Media Center
Kriss Barker, Population Media Center
William Ryerson, Population Media Center
Ephraim Okon, Population Media Center-Nigeria
Mike DeSarno, University of Vermont
Gimba Victor Kyari, Kaduna State University
Yusuf Haliru, Center for Reproductive Health and Development Services, Kano
Kayode Alli-Balogun, Center for Reproductive Health and Development Services, Kano

Contraceptive prevalence (CPR) in North West Nigeria is the lowest in the country coinciding with high fertility driven primarily by large family ideation. Research shows that communication about family planning, especially between spouses/partners leads to adoption of a modern method of contraception. To promote spouse and partner communication and to increase family planning use, an entertainment-education radio serial drama was broadcast featuring characters that modeled how to discuss having smaller families, birth spacing, contraceptive use, and maternal and child health. A post-test representative survey of 649 participants found that 71 percent listened to the program weekly. Multivariate analysis found that regular listeners were 2.4 (95% CI 1.4, 4.3) times more likely than non-listeners to say they “currently use something to delay or avoid pregnancy.” On several other behavioral and attitudinal indicators, results showed that regular listeners to the program had more favorable scores than non-listeners to the program.