Resource Library

Use of the opportunity, ability, and motivation behavior change framework to generate family planning demand in rural settings: Findings from Nepal

In rural Nepal, the modern contraceptive prevalence rate is 41%, and the unmet need for family planning is 25% (DHS, 2016). SHOPS Plus supports the Nepal CRS Company (CRS), a social marketing organization, to increase modern contraception access and use in rural, underserved communities. To catalyze reductions in unmet need, CRS’s Ghar Ghar Maa Swasthya (GGMS) project in rural Nepal generates family planning demand through behavior change communication and increases contraceptive access through social marketing.

The SHOPS Plus team conducted a knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) survey in the GGMS areas to understand barriers to family planning uptake using the opportunity, ability, and motivation (OAM) behavior change framework (Chapman, 2004). The OAM framework was developed within the context of social marketing and focuses on mutable behavioral determinants that social marketing interventions and behavior change communication can influence. Our findings present key OAM determinants of and impediments to increased contraceptive access and use in extremely remote areas. This study can inform family planning programs throughout rural South Asia and is vitally important and timely given the Commission on the Status of Women’s 2018 priority of achieving gender equality for rural women.

SHOPS Plus research, monitoring, and evaluation director for Nepal Sujan Karki presented the poster at the International Conference on Family Planning on November 14 in Kigali, Rwanda. 

Learn more about the research.