MALE’S KNOWLEDGE AND INVOLVEMENT IN MATERNAL HEALTH CARE OF THEIR WIVES IN SABO COMMUNITY, IBADAN, OYO STATE

Abstract

Maternal health refers to health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period and it is an essential component of reproductive health. Community diagnosis in Sabo community revealed that women present late at the primary health care because they needed to take permission from their husband. Those declined by their husband secretly hid their hospital card in the health facility as well some women went ahead to carry out family planning without the consent of the husband. There is paucity of data on men’s knowledge and involvement in maternal health care, therefore this study was designed to investigate knowledge and level of involvement of men in maternal health care of their wives in Sabo Community, Ibadan Oyo State. A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 367 married men that are resident in the community using a multistage sampling technique: stratification of the community into five strata, proportionate sampling of number of respondents in each stratum and systematic selection of respondents. A pre-tested interviewer administered questionnaire containing information on knowledge with a 30-point scale. Score of <15, 15-22 and >22 were rated as poor, fair and good knowledge respectively. Level of men’s involvement was assessed based on a 10-point scale with scores of (0-7) and >7 categorised as poor and good involvement respectively. Perception on men’s involvement was assessed on a 10-point scale with scores (0- 7) and >7 categorised as negative and positive perception. The data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, Fishers test and Chi square test at 0.5% level of significance Mean age of the respondents was 40.3± 8.8 while 99.2% were muslim. More than three quarter practiced monogamy (76.3%), 71.4% had secondary education while 13.4% and 5.7% had tertiary and Islamic education, respectively. Majority (97.0%) were Hausa and those that were self-employed accounted for (94.6%). Respondents’ knowledge score revealed that 4.6%, 65.7% and 29.7% had poor, fair and good knowledge of maternal health care, respectively. Only 22.3% of the respondents had good level of involvement in maternal health care while majority (73.8%) had positive perception on involvement in maternal health care. Factors influencing men’s involvement in maternal health care included too busy at work (75.2%), wrong belief that morbidity is a normal consequence during pregnancy (82.0%), religious belief on the use of contraceptive method (45.2%) among others. Significantly those in the younger age were more involved in maternal health care and those that had at least secondary school education had more knowledge on maternal health care Male’s knowledge was found to be good but their level of involvement of men in maternal health care was low in spite of the positive perception on men’s involvement in maternal health care. Public enlightenment and training programmes should be organized for the men to improve their knowledge and involvement in maternal health care in order to mitigate the preventable deaths of mother and child during and after pregnancy.