Socio-Demographic Variables and Practices of Pregnant Women in Akwa Ibom North East Senatorial District

Abstract

This study investigated socio-demographic variables and nutritional practices of pregnant women in Akwa Ibom North East Senatorial District. In order to achieve this purpose, five objectives, five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The study population comprised all 7,206 pregnant women from all the 261 primary health care centers in Akwa Ibom North East Senatorial District who registered for antenatal clinic in the health care facilities. A sample size of 400 pregnant women was used for this study. This study employed simple random sampling technique for the selection of the sample size. The instruments used for data collection was Socio-Demographic Variables and Nutritional Practices Questionnaire (SDVNPQ). The instrument was validated by three experts; two lecturers from the Department of Human Kinetics and Health Education as well as one lecturer from Department of Psychological Foundations of Education. Cronbach’s Alpha Statistics was used to obtained reliability coefficient of 0.85. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The study revealed that there is a significant influence of socio-demographic variables (level of education, age, economic status, family size and religion) on nutritional practices among pregnant women in Akwa Ibom North East Senatorial District. Based on these findings, the researcher recommends among others that the Ministry of Health should enact policies and improve basic education for all womenfolk of childbearing age both at the pre (before pregnancy), during and post pregnancy (after birth), on the need for wellness practices expected of expectant womenfolk and not just focusing on the sensitizations and counseling services rendered only during Antenatal and/or postnatal care which is centered towards the pregnant women only.