Community-based study of contraceptive behaviour in Nigeria.

A cross sectional, community-based, descriptive study among women of reproductive age group (15-49 years) in Nigeria to explore the possible reasons for contraceptive non-use despite reported high awareness was carried out. Data were obtained using a standard questionnaire instrument and applied on 2001 respondents. Contraceptive prevalence among sexually active respondents was 14.8% for all methods, 10.1% for modern methods and only 0.8% for emergency contraceptives. The most frequently stated reasons for non-use of contraceptives, among those who had never used any contraceptives but who did not want more children were: "did not think about it", "against religious belief" and "fear of side effects." Prior counseling significantly improved the continuation rate of contraception. Multivariate analysis showed that older, married and more educated women tended to use contraceptives more. Health-care providers should be trained to offer counseling services to all clients in general, and young, unmarried and uneducated women in particular in order to improve their acceptance of contraceptives.

Induced abortion in Nigeria: findings from focus group discussion.

Abortion is carried out daily in Nigeria despite the restrictive abortion law. This study was carried out to obtain information on societal attitude to the issues of family planning, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, adoption of children and laws relating to them. Focus group discussions were held in south-western Nigeria among 11 sub-groups. Participants felt that there was high prevalence of unwanted pregnancy and abortion particularly among youths. They had high level awareness of contraceptives and ascribed its low use to negative side effects, high cost and provider bias. Christians favoured planning of pregnancies while the Muslims did not. Majority of the respondents had negative perception of induced abortion. Some of them supported abortion if the education of the young girl would be disrupted, if paternity of pregnancy is in dispute, or if it would save the family from shame. Participants supported the enactment of laws that would make adoption of unwanted children easier.

Promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in Nigeria through change in medical school curriculum.

Significant developments have occurred in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally in the last decade. However, this is yet to translate into improved status of SRHR in developing countries. One of the strategies recognised worldwide for addressing the poor status of SRHR is human capacity building at all levels. A pilot work conducted in two federal university medical schools identified a major gap in knowledge among medical students on issues related to SRHR. This called for a review of the curriculum to enable the incorporation of relevant and topical issues. This article describes the processes leading to the adoption of the Nigerian medical schools' sexual and reproductive health and rights curriculum. The exercise culminated in the identification of internal and external stakeholders and needs of the Nigerian medical schools in teaching reproductive health. The participation of lecturers (bottom-up approach) brought about a sense of ownership of the document and promoted the broad consultation and participation of all participants. It also identified capacity building and the need for evaluation as a basis for further review.

Characteristics of abortion care seekers in south-western Nigeria.

This prospective hospital-based study was carried out to understand the characteristics of abortion care seekers in south-western Nigeria. Information was obtained from a total of 1876 women seeking abortion at hospitals using a questionnaire. The results show that majority (60%) were between the ages of 15 and 24 years, of which adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 years constituted 23.7%. Most (63.2%) of the respondents were unmarried, but married women also constituted a significant proportion (30.2%) of the abortion care seekers. Students were the single highest group, while the predominant economic activity was trading (26.7%). Respondents terminated their pregnancies mainly because they were students or because they did not desire to have children. Most (35.5%) of the women were introduced to providers by friends. Average contraceptive prevalence among the abortion care seekers was 27.4%. It is obvious from the results that young persons, especially in-school adolescents, should be targeted for comprehensive sexuality education especially in view of the current HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Community-based survey of unwanted pregnancy in southwestern Nigeria.

Unwanted pregnancy, and consequently unsafe abortion, remains major reproductive health problems in Nigeria that needs to be tackled. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of information on this problem at the community level. This study therefore examined the prevalence of unwanted pregnancy in the community as well as associated factors including the views, perceptions and attitudes of community members towards unwanted pregnancy and the pattern of help-seeking behaviour on unwanted pregnancy. Information was obtained from 3,743 women in urban and rural communities in two Nigerian states of Lagos and Edo. At some point in life, 26.6% of the respondents had had unwanted Pregnancy while abortion prevalence was 21.7%. Short birth intervals (21.1%), high cost of raising children (20.1%), interruption of education (20.1%) and being unmarried (17.3%) were the most common reasons for not wanting pregnancies. Most of the respondents (91.3%) were aware of some form of contraception but ever-use rate was only 36.6% while current use rate was 23.4%. Both abortion and contraceptive use were significantly associated with increasing levels of education. Unwanted pregnancy constitutes a problem even at the community level and more research is needed to understand the persistent disparity between contraceptive knowledge and usage, as increased usage will reduce unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion.