Between April and October 1989 in Turkey, interviews with more than 3000 migrant workers working in the cotton fields of Dogankent were conducted to examine their attitude towards family planning and their utilization of family planning services. Researchers wanted to evaluate a family planning program which was integrated into 3 primary health centers in Adana. The workers tended to be young. The average family size was 4.3. 40% of the women have had an induced abortion. 62% have already lost a child. 70% of the migrant workers were illiterate. A family planning team (a physician, a public health professional, a nurse, and a midwife) would meet under the tents of the migrant workers outside of work hours to speak to 15-20 persons about the principles of family planning. The team would return once a month to provide contraceptives and to determine the needs and demands of each person. When the migrant workers returned to their home villages in eastern Turkey, the team would give them an official letter addressed to the physicians of the health centers in their village to achieve follow-up care. Almost 80% of the 300 workers who originally used a traditional family planning method accepted effective family planning methods (e.g., IUD, oral contraceptives [OCs], condoms, spermicide tablets, and tubal ligation). At the end of the family planning program, almost 50% of the 3000 workers used modern contraception. Prior to its inception, the modern contraception use rate was only 10%. 78% of them used OCs or condoms. The remaining used spermicide tablets or IUDs.

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information processing Migrant Workers Studies Family Planning Programs educational status health care planning sexual behavior Illiterates economics population Surveys demography developing country Population Dynamics Sampling Studies Research Report Developing Countries epidemiology Asia Turkey (republic) Western Asia Asia, Western Mediterranean Countries socioeconomic status fertility population growth social status attitude health care manpower Health Manpower Socioeconomic Factors socioeconomics Contraception Article Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice migration Health Planning Turkey Demographic Factors Infant Mortality High Fertility Population Family Planning, Traditional Methods Contraceptive Usage--changes Economic Factors Kap Surveys Transients and Migrants social class childhood mortality Human Resources Contraception Behavior family planning Child Mortality employment Labor Force mortality Data Collection English Abstract