Perceptions of family planning among husbands and wives in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand
Date
1991
Authors
Khanitha Suriyaphon
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to find out how husbands and wives perceive family planning concepts, philosophies, objectives, and practices and to determine the factors associated with their level of perceptions.
A total of 92 couples (92 husbands and 92 wives) representing 20 percent of the total married couples in six villeges from six tambons and six amphoes, namely: Nong-Ngu-Laum, Don-Khoy, Klang, Bang-Ra-Kam, Bang-Teuy, and Don-Phutsa served as respondents of this study. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire.
To determine the husbands and wives' perceptions of family planning issues, the Likert method of attitude measurement was used. The descriptive portions of the data were analyzed by means of percentage, mean, standard deviation, and range. The Pearson's Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation was used to determine the husbands and wives' level of perceptions in relation to selected variables. T-test was employed to find out the significant difference in the socio-demographic attributes, family attributes, communication factors and levels of perceptions of husband and wife respondents.
The findings revealed that both husbands and wives had high levels perceptions of family planning concepts, philosophies, objectives and practices. However, it appeared that the wife-respondents had relatively higher level of perceptions than the husband-respondents.
In general, respondents' age was 42 years and all of them practiced Buddhism. More than half (59%) had no training about any family planning program and the frequency of training attendance was only 1.3. Majority (42%) of them got married at the age of 25 and mean length of married was 17.4 years. The mean number of living children was 3 with more than half (60%) preferred 3 to 4 children. They had high family income with mean of 93.789 Baht which is higher than the national average income of 30,000 Baht. All of them were aware of family planning programs. One hundred percent of the respondents preferred the print and broadcast media as sources of information about family planning.
Both husbands and wives agreed to the family planning concepts, philosophies, objectives and practices.
There was a highly significant difference in the husbands and wives' perceptions of the family planning's overall program as well as in its concepts, philosophies and objectives. The socio-demographic attributes, family attributes, and communication factors which were found significantly associated with husbands and wives' perceptions of family planning programs were: (1) age; (2) training attended (for husbands); (3) length of marriage; (4) desired number of children (for husbands only); and (5) sources of information.