SUITABILITY OF ADOPTION OF FAITH-BASED APPROACH TO PROMOTE CHILD CARE PRACTICES THROUGH THE PASTORS’ WIVES IN IBADAN NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

Abstract

Despite the available simple and low-cost child care strategy, Nigeria continues to record unacceptable high child mortality rate with obvious un-accomplishment of the 4th millennium development goal by the year 2015. Interestingly, faith based setting as an approach to health promotion and education has proven positive in areas of health. However, its utilisation in developing countries including Nigeria has been minimal. This study therefore investigated the suitability of adoption of faith-based approach to promote child care practices through Pastors’ wives in Ibadan North Local Government Area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The study uses a descriptive cross-sectional design. It was targeted at all Pastors’ wives of registered churches except the Roman Catholic Church which officially forbids marriage for her Pastors. Using the multi-stage sampling technique, selected pastors’ wives completed a pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire that sought information on sociodemographic profiles, health related programmes involved in, knowledge of child survival strategy, communication methods, challenges and ways assistance can be given toward involvement in child care programmes. The study was conducted in compliance with standard ethical research procedures. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, chisquare test, t-test and F test at p≤ 0.05. A total of 128 pastors’ wives and women leaders (mean age 46.1±9.3 years) participated in the study. They were mainly Yorubas’ (87.5), had university degree (35.9%), into business and trading (29.7%), mothers with at least a child; except for 2.30% of the pastors’ wives. The results showed that 49.2% had attended at least a health-related programme in the past. Interestingly, all were interested in attending and organizing health related programmes in the future with child care programme as of most importance (n=85 and n=87). Analysis showed that pastors’ wives were unaware of child survival strategy as only 13.4% had some level of knowledge. However, the pastors’ wives had different degrees of knowledge on the components in child survival strategy. Family planning (79.3%), breastfeeding (72.3%) and immunization (67.0%) were the most known while complementary feeding (40.2%) and growth monitoring (35.9%) were the least known. It was also observed that pastors’ wives

(99.2%) and women (92.2%) communicate health issues among each other and that 58.6% reported to be faced with constraints. While all the pastors wives except 0.8%, were willing to conduct child care practice programmes in the church, 99.2% reported they required assistance to do so. Many of the Pastors’ wives were unaware of child survival strategy. However, the fact that they were interested in child care programmes, communicate health-related issues with mothers and women, coupled with their willingness to conduct child care programme indicate their suitability in the promotion of child care practice in faith-based settings. Nevertheless, the importance of training pastors’ wives on child care programmes targeted at improving child health cannot be overemphasized.