Acceptability, Comprehensibility and Reported Influence - BRAC ...

• referring women or baby with problems or sickness to health facilities, and
• family planning.
However, SSs and SKs reported that usually they failed to contact the husband
because they were absent in the home during SS and SKs’ home visits. None of the
pregnant or lactating women reported that the SSs and SKs had talked with their
husbands. Most of the time the women themselves informed their spouses about the
visits of the SSs and SKs, and they also shared the messages with their husbands.
Women mentioned that when their husbands saw the posters of maternal danger
signs only then they asked where from they got these. A pregnant woman said,
“SK left the sticker on the table. My husband saw it and asked ‘who gave
this card Why’Then I said, ‘Monoara apa (SK) gave this’. But he did not
say anything about this matter.”
Another pregnant woman said,
“My husband read the messages of the posters/stickers and said to my
mother-in -law that we have to go to hospitals if any danger sign appears.
My mothers-in-law did not know these things beforehand.”
Women also talked about the BRAC MNCH services to their neighbour and relatives.
The advice they gave to their relatives and neighbours was that which they received
from SSs and SKs during their pregnancy. A lactating woman said,
“If anybody is pregnant I tell them to contact Monju apa (SS) and Shonali apa
(SK). When I was pregnant they advised me on maternal danger signs, ANC,
PNC, Newborn care etc. So you also communicate with them”.
Clarity and comprehensibility of the pictures of posters/stickers/flipcharts
To assess the respondents’ level of understanding we showed them existing pictures
of flipcharts and asked them to describe the pictures and tell us what message they
were getting from them. Most of those pictures were correctly described by the
participants and also they could recount the exact message (Annex 1). However, they
experienced some difficulty in recognizing certain pictures and messages, e.g.
maternal danger signs. They could not recognize the state of the mother that is,
whether it was before and after delivery. But the respondents knew that these danger
signs could occur during pregnancy, delivery, and after delivery. They also suggested
that it would have been easy to understand if there was a baby lying beside the
mother in those pictures indicating maternal danger signs after delivery (Annex 2).
Some of the participants found the pictures of cutting the baby’s cord with germ-free
blade and the message on exclusive breast feeding for six months not clear. They felt
that the pictures were not informative. They understood them because SS explained
the messages. The respondents articulated the same opinion about the picture of
18 RED Working Paper No. 21