Female circumcision in Nigeria and attitudes towards its discontinuation.

BACKGROUND: Female Circumcision (FC) is a harmful traditional practice and remains a public health problem particularly in the era of HIV/AIDS. Aside its numerous health implications, it can cause infertility, complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths. FC is widely practised in Nigeria. OBJECTIVE: The study assessed the level of FC, daughters' circumcision and attitude towards discontinuation of the practice among women of reproductive age. METHODS: Data were extracted from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic Health and Survey. Data were analysed using Chi-square and binary logistic regression models (á = 0.05). RESULTS: Among the respondents, prevalence of FC was 49.2% with 30.6% having circumcised their daughters and 25.8% wishing the practice to continue. About 56% of circumcised women also circumcised their daughters whereas only 2.9% of uncircumcised women circumcised their daughters. Approximately 69.8% of women who had circumcised their daughters would like FC to continue compared to 8.8% of those who never circumcised any of their daughters. The likelihood of FC was higher (OR = 2.07; C.I = 1.85-2.30) among Moslems compare to Christians. Igbo women were less likely to discontinue FC compared to women of Hausa/Fulani ethnic group despite controlling for the confounding variables (OR = 0.57; C.I = 0.35-0.91). CONCLUSION: Female circumcision is still practiced in all parts of Nigeria and a high proportion of women reported that the practice should continue. There is need to intensify efforts on the campaign against female circumcision in Nigeria.

An appraisal of convergence failures in the application of logistic regression model in published manuscripts.

BACKGROUND: Logistic regression model is widely used in health research for description and predictive purposes. Unfortunately, most researchers are sometimes not aware that the underlying principles of the techniques have failed when the algorithm for maximum likelihood does not converge. Young researchers particularly postgraduate students may not know why separation problem whether quasi or complete occurs, how to identify it and how to fix it. OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to critically evaluate convergence issues in articles that employed logistic regression analysis published in an African Journal of Medicine and medical sciences between 2004 and 2013. METHODS: Problems of quasi or complete separation were described and were illustrated with the National Demographic and Health Survey dataset. A critical evaluation of articles that employed logistic regression was conducted. RESULTS: A total of 581 articles was reviewed, of which 40 (6.9%) used binary logistic regression. Twenty-four (60.0%) stated the use of logistic regression model in the methodology while none of the articles assessed model fit. Only 3 (12.5%) properly described the procedures. Of the 40 that used the logistic regression model, the problem of convergence occurred in 6 (15.0%) of the articles. CONCLUSION: Logistic regression tends to be poorly reported in studies published between 2004 and 2013. Our findings showed that the procedure may not be well understood by researchers since very few described the process in their reports and may be totally unaware of the problem of convergence or how to deal with it.