Onderzoeksartikel

De effectiviteit van de inzet van paraprofessionals: een evaluatieonderzoek naar groepsvoorlichting voor allochtone vrouwen

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Abstract

Because of poor education, language problems and cultural differences allochthonous Turkish women have hardly acces to the knowledge supply in the Dutch society, especially to that which is offered by the mass media. Just for this group, it’s likely that the knowledge gap hypothesis (Tichenor, Donohue & Olien, 1970) applies. The knowledge spread by the mass media doesn’t reach this group with as a consequence, that this group is far behind other groups in society regarding (health) knowledge. It has been suggested that for this group this problem (partly) could be solved by using paraprofessionals. Paraprofessionals are individuals, who are members of the same cultural group as the adressed. They have got a special training program to acquire the knowledge and the capacity to transmit the information to the other members of the group. So they can communicate with them in their own language and approach them within their own cultural background. In this article we report the results of a research into the question if the use of paraprofessionals could be effective in narrowing the knowledge gap. In three experiments we tested if knowledge regarding health in the paraprofessional condition has improved in comparison to the control (no intervention) condition. Also we tested if attitudes and intentions towards preventive actions have relatively more improved in the experimental condition. The three experiments correspond with three educative interventions regarding three health themes: ‘anatomy’, ‘psycho-somatic problems’ and ‘self-care and medicins’. Subjects were randomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions. Measurement of the effects was carried out for both groups simultaneously only after the exposure of the experimental group to the paraprofessional education has taken place. In the case of the ‘anatomy’ theme expected effects were found: The experimental group scored significantly better on knowledge, attitude and behavior intention than the control group. Regarding the ‘psycho-somatic’ theme only better knowledge could be established and there were no effects on attitude or intentions, the last probably due to ceiling effects. In the case of the ‘self-care and medicins’ we didn’t find any effect, maybe partly due to ceiling conditions or cultural assets (i.c. a tight pattern of norms regarding medicine use in their home culture). It was concluded that the application of paraprofessionals in health education for this ‘difficult accesible’ group seems useful to narrow the knowledge gap. It seems that the (extent of) effect depends on the sort of health theme that is adressed and the cultural assets regarding that theme.

How to Cite:

Van Dommelen, L. & Van Der Rijt, G., (1998) “De effectiviteit van de inzet van paraprofessionals: een evaluatieonderzoek naar groepsvoorlichting voor allochtone vrouwen”, Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap 26(1), 1–13.