A baseline survey was conducted in December 1990 before broadcast of the new episodes, consisting of 201 men aged 16-64, and 198 women aged 15-44. A follow-up survey was carried out in August 1991 after the show had been on the air for 8 months, consisting of 203 men and 199 women. Respondents in the pre- and post-campaign samples had similar characteristics, though the post-campaign sample had a significantly larger proportion of respondents who wanted to have another child or who were pregnant, a feature that had some effect on contraceptive usage. Furthermore, 721 new clients at any of the 8 Gambia Family Planning Clinics were also interviewed between January and September 1991.

In 1991, 61% of new family planning acceptors had heard "Fakube Jarra". There were approximately 137,245 residents in the area of study, though the radio programme was broadcast throughout most of the country.

Listening to "Fakube Jarra" was shown to increase interpersonal communication about family planning (FP) with partners from 16% to 36% and with friends from 15% to 26%. Programme exposure was associated with increased spousal communication only among uneducated respondents (from 8% to 25%) but not among educated ones.

Knowledge was measured by asking respondents to indicate whether or they had heard of any of 8 modern family planning methods that were read to them, resulting in an 8-point scale. Knowledge of contraceptive methods did not significantly increase, (Pre-campaign = 5.2 to Post-campaign = 5.3). The authors believe that this most probably because levels of awareness were already high.

To test attitudes, respondents were asked if they agreed with 12 family planning statements. Of those who had only been exposed to "Fakube Jarra", positive attitudes toward modern methods of contraception increased from 10.3 to 11.3 on an attitude scale of 1-12, with an overall increase in positive attitudes from 4.9 to 11.2 on the same scale (p<.01). Those with no education reported a change from 4.5 to 11.2, while those with some education reported a change from 4.9 to 11.4. Exposure to the original series of "Fakube Jarra" was found to have a statistically significant relationship to improved attitudes, and the recent episodes had an equally significant impact.

Use of modern methods rose from 19% to 30%, almost exclusively of the Pill. Of those who were only exposed to "Fakube Jarra" and no other aspects of the campaign, current users of modern methods rose from 16% to 35%. When analysed in terms of education, there were significant gains among the uneducated current users of modern contraception methods (an increase from 9.3% to 22%), while those with some education were already reporting rates around 43% and only underwent a 2.5% increase. In addition, 72.7% of new clinic clients reported that "Fakube Jarra" was a motivating factor in their attendance at the clinic, while 41.1% reported the influence of promotional spots - both were significant at (p<.001). This is compared to 46.6% reporting the influence of fieldworkers and 57.5% reporting friends as sources of motivation.

Valente, T.W., Kim, Y.M., Lettenmaier, C.L., Glass, W., Dibba, Y. "Radio Promotion of Family Planning in The Gambia". International Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 20, pgs. 96-100, 1994.