Thesis (BA Communication Arts) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, June 2015.

The study was intended to find out whether communication exposure on about family planning affects the beliefs and uptake of the family planning program itself. The study was conducted in Barangay Talomo Proper, Davao City using a one-shot survey design. Data gathered from 200 respondents randomly selected through multistage cluster sampling were then analyzed using Spearman?s rho and Chi-square Test of Independence. Results revealed that exposure to family planning information was low among the residents yet they have indicated high level of knowledge, positive attitudes toward family planning, high perceived social pressure to comply with family planning, and high perceived behavioral control to practice family planning. Furthermore, only partial uptake of the family planning program indicated high results. On the other hand, communication exposure was only seen to demonstrate significant relationship with the uptake of the program. It did not correlate significantly with other variables such as knowledge, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control. Nevertheless, attitude was found to have a significant correlation with both subjective norm and uptake whereas perceived behavioral control demonstrated significant relationship with subjective norm. Social, economic, political and cultural factors may have influenced the results between communication exposure, knowledge and beliefs of family planning. The assumptions of the Theory of Planned Behavior demonstrated that other factors such as age, religion, income, etc. should be considered responsible in the formation of certain beliefs and behaviors and that communication may or may not be the ultimate facilitator of these beliefs and behaviors. And from a Knowledge-Attitude-Practice perspective of looking at the results, it is suggested that future communication interventions of family planning should advance more toward an educational-action approach. Likewise, interpersonal and group communication between the stakeholder and the target audience must also be intensified.