Uptake of cervical cancer screening services among female medical practitioners in Ogun State, South-West Nigeria

Background: There is an increasing awareness of cancer screening services in the general population, but the uptake of the services varies.Objective: To determine the uptake of cervical cancer screening services among female medical doctors as service providers.Methods: This was a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional, descriptive study of female doctors practising in Ogun State, Nigeria. The questionnaires were self-administered, and convenience sampling method was used.Results: A total of 85 female doctors were surveyed. A little over half of the respondents (57.6%) reported routine medical checks and 54.2% of the respondents had a check up in the last two years. Seventy percent of the respondents who had a routine medical check-up and screening for cervical cancer were within the age range 31-50 years, and there were significant relationships between age and routine medical check-up and screening for cervical cancer (p values =0.014 and 0.005 respectively. Thirty-three of the respondents (39.8%) had ever been screened for cervical cancer while only 30.1% of the respondents had been screened for cervical cancer in the last three years. The majority of the respondents (59.8%) did not approve of making cervical cancer screening a condition for social benefits.Conclusion: Female medical doctors had a low uptake rate for cervical cancer screening services. The low uptake may adversely affect the cervical cancer screening campaigns targeted at the general population. Mandatory cervical cancer screening, as a prerequisite for social benefit, may improve the uptake rates for the screening services

Seroprevalence of HIV among blood donors, antenatal women and other patients in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria

HIV/AIDS continues to remain a nightmare in the developing nations of the world especially in Nigeria, where about 2.9 million people are living with this problem. This study aimed at determining the sero-prevalence of HIV among both patients and blood donors at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Nigeria. Samples were collected between January 1st, 2005 and December, 31st 2006 and were screened using two rapid test kits, with two different principles (enzymatic and agglutination). Samples positive to the two methods were taken as truly sero-positive. The seropositive rate among blood donors, antenatal women, in- and out patients were, 3.2 percent, 6.9 percent and 17.5 percent respectively. There were five cases of positivity to both HIV I and II. Antenatal women between the ages of 26-35 were found responsible for 5.3 percent of the total positivity among antenatal women. Though, there is high prevalence rate among in- and out-patients, many of these were screened based on manifestation of clinical symptoms. However, more is to be done in the area of prevention of this disease, since no cure is yet found.

Seroprevalence of HIV among blood donors, antenatal women and other patients in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria.

HIV/AIDS continues to remain a nightmare in the developing nations of the world especially in Nigeria, where about 2.9 million people are living with this problem. This study aimed at determining the sero-prevalence of HIV among both patients and blood donors at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu, Nigeria. Samples were collected between January 1st, 2005 and December, 31st 2006 and were screened using two rapid test kits, with two different principles (enzymatic and agglutination). Samples positive to the two methods were taken as truly sero-positive. The seropositive rate among blood donors, antenatal women, in- and out patients were, 3.2%, 6.9% and 17.5% respectively. There were five cases of positivity to both HIV I and II. Antenatal women between the ages of 26-35 were found responsible for 5.3% of the total positivity among antenatal women. Though, there is high prevalence rate among in- and out-patients, many of these were screened based on manifestation of clinical symptoms. However, more is to be done in the area of prevention of this disease, since no cure is yet found.

Factors militating against delivery among patients booked in Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu.

BACKGROUND: A preliminary review of antenatal and delivery records of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu revealed that only 47.6% of booked pregnant women subsequently delivered there. This observation stimulated a thought to carry out a study to find out the proportion of pregnant patients who booked in OOUTH and subsequently delivered in OOUTH, patients' preferred place of delivery and factors militating against OOUTH delivery. METHOD: A cross-sectional study was carried out on pregnant patients booked at OOUTH, Sagamu between December, 2001 and May, 2002 to find out factors militating against delivery at OOUTH. Two hundred and sixty six questionnaires were returned properly filled. RESULTS: The age range of the pregnant women was 16 to 42 years with a mean age of 31.2 +/- 3.4 years. The parity ranged from 1-5 with a mean of 2.1 +/- 1.1. The preferred place of delivery was private hospital (58.3%), followed by OOUTH (28%). The higher the educational level, the more they tended to hospital delivery; 57% of the pregnant women who had hospital deliveries had tertiary education. While 52.7% of the pregnant women gave miscellaneous reasons such as relocation, being used for experiment, too many students being present, and frequent strikes by hospital workers for not delivering in OOUTH, as much as 16.5% said the time wasting and bad attitude of the hospital staff were responsible for preferring centres other than OOUTH for delivery. CONCLUSION: OOUTH like most other teaching/government hospitals need to be more user-friendly to encourage better patronage. There is a need to educate the patients that attend teaching hospital on the essence of establishing teaching hospitals and the importance of training medical students and retraining of doctors in order to maintain a continuity and high standard of medical practice.