In 1986-87, a qualitative research project was conducted in the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, and Thailand to expand understanding of the acceptability of NORPLANT contraceptive implants beyond inferences made on the basis of continuation rates. In each of the four study sites, focus group discussions or in-depth interviews were held with potential acceptors, current NORPLANT users, discontinuers, husbands of women in these three groups, and service providers. Nonclinical participants generally had little formal education and lived primarily in urban or semi-urban areas where NORPLANT has been available for at least five years. The study focused on attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of each group regarding NORPLANT implants. Results suggest that factors having an impact on the acceptability of NORPLANT implants fall into three general categories: medical/technical, cultural/religious, and informational/educational. This article discusses each of these categories, including programmatic implications of the findings, and puts forward recommendations for enhancing NORPLANT introduction efforts on the basis of these findings.

For the past few years, PIACT has been helping to develop culturally appropriate print materials to explain correct contraceptive use to illiterate and semiliterate audiences in eight Asian and Latin American countries. Our experience has shown that this understanding is most effectively and economically acquired through the use of the print medium in conjunction with personalized instruction in individual or small group settings. PIACT has developed its own methodology for the production of non-verbal instructional print materials. This methodology is based on working with, and learning from, the target audience at each stage of the materials' design and development process.

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This special report discusses the significance and potential benefit of portraying men in nontraditional sex roles within pictorial instructional print materials on health and child care. It is based on the cognitive and behavioral findings of a comparative research study conducted in selected rural and periurban areas of Mexico on the use of two versions of an ORS pictorial pamphlet. Major findings of the study were: (1) portraying nontraditional sex roles for men in the ORS pamphlet did not reduce the credibility of technical information contained in the pamphlet; (2) a significantly greater number of subjects preferred the version that portrayed the father figure as co-caretaker of a sick child. These unexpected results have important implications for instructional and motivational communication and health education projects throughout the developing world.