Lessons from India: client and provider perspectives
Magar, V.
Avsc News ) 33(1): 1 7
1995
PMID: 12346035 Document Number: 288450
Informal interviews with family planning providers and clients in India revealed several important attitudinal differences which would affect their interaction. Providers generally are from urban areas; therefore, they view children as an extra expense, consider a large family irrational, view fertility as controllable, are used to making individualized lifestyle choices, and feel comfortable with modern technology. In addition, performance targets cause them to try to convince clients to accept long-acting methods rather than to counsel clients so that the client can choose the method best suited to his or her needs. Rural clients consider extra children to be a potential source of extra income. For this reason, a large family is rational to them. They also view fertility as uncontrollable, are not used to making lifestyle choices because they identify themselves as members of a group which makes choices for them, and have little interaction with or faith in technology. They often view providers as coercive rather than helpful. Given this situation, providers must learn to 1) include clients in program planning and design; 2) appreciate client needs, values, and priorities when making programmatic decisions; and 3) defer to clients during program implementation.