Willingness to support antenatal blood donation among married men in a Metropolitan City in North-central Nigeria.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: Improving blood availability through voluntary or compulsory antenatal blood donation is pivotal to reducing maternal morbidity and mortality in developing countries. Willingness to donate blood is adjudged to be an important step to the actual practice of donating blood. This study aimed to determine the knowledge, attitude and willingness of men towards antenatal blood donation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to recruit 500 married men into the study using interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 16 software package. Pearson's Chi-squared test was used to test for significant associations between variables. A P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: More than half 300 (60%) of the respondents had good knowledge of antenatal blood donation in general. Majority (85.8%) of the respondents were willing to support voluntary blood donation. The overall attitude to blood donation was positive in 77.8% of the respondents. A significantly higher proportion 268 (89.3%) of respondents with good knowledge of antenatal blood donation were willing to donate blood (P = 0.0006). CONCLUSIONS: The majority have good knowledge and positive attitude towards antenatal blood donation. However, there is need to urgently transform this positive attitude to action through continual public enlightenment to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

Prevalence and risk factors of cervical cancer among women in an urban community of Kwara State, north central Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy in women worldwide with a high incidence in under-developed countries and Nigeria is one of these countries. This study aimed at screening for cervical cancer using Papanicolaou smear and to identify risk factors for cervical cancer among women in Olufadi community, Kwara State, North-central Nigeria. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study involving the screening of women aged 25-64 years for cervical cancer using Papanicolaou smear. Respondents were selected through systematic random sampling of households. Interviewer- administered questionnaire and clinical report form were also used to collect data. In addition, Pap smear samples were taken. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 15. RESULTS: Only 10 (5.0%) respondents had positive cytology result, while the rest were normal. Of the 10 positive cytology results, 1 (10.0%) was high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HGSIL) while the remaining 9 (90.0%) were low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LGSIL) which corresponds to 0.5% and 4.5% of the total respondents respectively. Risk factors for cervical cancer identified included coitarche, tobacco smoking, number of sexual partners and family history of cervical cancer. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study attest to the increasing burden of cervical cancer. The high number of positive results obtained from the study coupled with the presence of risk factors was an indication of how useful regular screening will be in the early detection of cervical cancer.