Attendance to Antenatal Clinic and Responses to COVID-19 Vaccination Among Pregnant Women in South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Pregnancy is a normal physiological process which occasionally, could be complicated by pathologic conditions that are dangerous to the health or life of the mother, fetus or both. Hence the need for the pregnant woman to be attending prenatal clinic for supervision and care by qualified health professionals. This study examined attendance to antenatal clinic and responses to Covid-19 vaccination among pregnant women in South-South Nigeria. The study adopted cross-sectional research design. Multistage sampling technique was used to select Edo State out of the six States that make up South-South Nigeria, and in selection of sample size of 144 pregnant women from the primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities in Edo State. The instrument used for data collection was Questionnaire on Antenatal Visits and Covid-19 Vaccination (QAVCV). The reliability of the instrument was established through split-half method using Cronbach alpha which yielded coefficient of 0.711. Data Collected were analysed using frequencies, percentages, means, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests. The result showed that 76.4% of the pregnant women booked early, 84.0% attended antenatal visits in line with the appointments given by their care providers, 38.2% were afraid to attend antenatal clinic, only few (5.6%) received Covid-19 Vaccination, some (47.2%) were of the opinion that the vaccine is dangerous to health but 55.6% indicated that the vaccine is protective. Educational level and parity significantly influenced the women’s attendance to antenatal clinic respectively: z = 19.90, p-value = <0.001; z = 1817.50, p=value = 0.003. Also, the result indicated that educational level significantly influenced pregnant women’s opinion about Covid-19 Vaccination: K = 14.92, p-value = 0.002. There is urgent need for health professionals to mount campaign to encourage pregnant women to respond positively to Covid-19 vaccination.