A comparative study of HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitudes of hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired secondary school students in Ibadan.

OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to compare HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitudes of hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired secondary school students in Ibadan, South-Western Nigeria. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey of all the hearing impaired students and an equal number of non-hearing-impaired students enrolled in a half way school in Ibadan was conducted. Four non-hearing-impaired students did not complete the survey and their responses were excluded from the final analysis. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 11.0). RESULTS: Seventy-eight hearing-impaired and non 74 non-hearing impaired students completed the survey. Thirty (38.5%) hearing-impaired and 67 (90.5%) and non-hearing-impaired students knew that HIV could be transmitted via semen, vaginal fluid and blood, (p < 0.001). HIV/AIDS knowledge scores were calculated giving minimum and maximum scores of 0 and 15 respectively. Mean knowledge score for hearing-impaired students was 4.7(±2.1) compared with 8.7(±2.3) among non-hearing-impaired students (t-test=11.307, p < 0.001). Generally, the students' attitudes to HIV/AIDS prevention and PLWHA were not favorable with only hearing-impaired and 44 (59.5%) non-hearing-impaired students agreeing that it would be alright for them to be in the same class with someone who had AIDS. CONCLUSIONS: The study showed that the hearing-impaired students had poorer knowledge and attitudes to HIV/AIDS compared with their non-hearing-impaired counterparts. There is a pressing need for development of HIV/AIDS education programmes specially designed to meet the needs of hearing impaired students.

Maternal health in Northern Nigeria: a far cry from ideal.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the level of maternal care in Northern Nigeria. DESIGN: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used. SETTING: The Study was Community based and carried out in the ten states that constitute UNICEF D zone in northeast Nigeria. POPULATION: Women who delivered in the 11 months preceding the survey and resident in the study area. METHODS: The WHO cluster sampling methodology was used to draw a sample of 210 eligible women in each of the 10 local government areas (LGAs). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Utilization of antenatal care (ANC) services, tetanous toxoid immunization, skilled attendant at delivery and postnatal care. RESULTS: Majority of the respondents, 73.2%, were between the ages 20 and 34 years. Overall, 50% of the women attended antenatal clinics during their last pregnancy, with a range of ANC coverage by LGA of 14.0-81.0%. The proportion of women who booked in the first, second and third trimesters was 22.8, 63.0 and 14.2%, respectively. The antenatal services offered ranged from 95.7% for abdominal examination to 41.2% for urine examination. Sixty percent of the women received no tetanus toxoid in their last pregnancy, 11% had one dose and 29% had at least two doses. Home delivery was still the norm throughout the zone with 1791 (85.3%) delivering at home. Up to 80.5% of the deliveries were supervised by personnel with no verifiable training in sanitary birthing techniques. Only 11.4% (233) of those who received ANC had postnatal check-up. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal health care as evidenced above is far from the ideal. Likewise, the commitment of the 5th Millennium Development Goal is extremely far-reaching: to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by 75% by the year 2015 with this level of maternal care.