An Experimental Study of The Effect of Group Meetings on The Acceptance of Family Planning in Taiwan.

The article presents a study, which tried to measure the effect of small group meetings on changes in attitudes to, knowledge about, and practice of family planning in Taiwan. More specifically, it tried to assess: the effectiveness of such meetings in motivating people to accept the loops, the efficiency of holding meetings in every other neighborhood instead of in every neighborhood, thus utilizing the power of diffusion. Before holding small group meetings, a 10 per cent random sample of 794 of all the married women was drawn. Trained public health nurses interviewed them in August 1964 to assess attitudes to, knowledge about and practice of family planning. During the pre-meeting survey, the workers were instructed strictly not to teach people anything about family planning. If any one asked specific questions, the workers were instructed to invite them to attend meetings for information. Those not attending the meetings also changed in these respects as a result of diffusion or influence from the attendees, although the change was less in these cases of indirect influence.