Effects of an Entertainment-Education Radio Soap Opera on Family Planning and HIV Prevention in St. Lucia

Abstract

An entertainment-education radio soap opera Apwe Plezi was broadcast from February 1996 to September 1998 in St. Lucia. The program promoted family planning HIV prevention and other development themes. The programs effects were assessed through analyses of data from nationally representative pre- and post-test surveys focus-group discussions and other qualitative and quantitative sources. Among 1238 respondents to the post-test survey 35% had listened to Apwe Plezi including 12% who listened at least once per week. Multivariate analyses show significant effects of both time and listenership category on several knowledge attitude and behavior variables. For example 16% of post-test respondents knew a slang term for condoms that was coined for the radio program and the proportions of respondents who considered it acceptable for husbands to have sex partners outside their marriage declined from 27% in the pretest to 14% in the post-test survey. Compared with non-listeners regular listeners were more likely to trust family planning workers (83% vs. 72%) and considered a significantly lower number of children the ideal (2.5 vs. 2.9). 14% of listeners reported having adopted a family planning method as a result of listening to the program. Apwe Plezi influenced listeners to increase their awareness of contraceptives improve important attitudes about fidelity and family relations and adopt family planning methods. Important lessons for entertainment-education programmers include that program reach and therefore effects can be limited by competition with other programming and that monitoring listeners perceptions is essential to detect and correct misinterpretations of program messages. (authors)