Assessment of Factors Affecting Mother's Perception of Caesarian Delivery in State Hospital Ijebu Ode

ABSTRACT

Introduction: This study is aimed at assessing the perceptions and attitudes towards caesarean section (CS) among women attending maternity care at the state Hospital Ijebu-ode Community.

 Methods: This is a descriptive study which involved all pregnant mothers using State Hospital Ijebu-Ode. They were interviewed with a structured questionnaire containing socio-demographic characteristics, previous pregnancy and delivery history as well as knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards CS. The results were analyzed with statistical package for social science (SPSS) software and presented as frequency and percentages. This was further analyzed using chi-square and t-test.

Results: The women had good knowledge of CS; however, only 39% have a fair perception of CS as a method of delivery, while 60% of Christian mothers would accept CS if needed to save their lives and that of their babies. Up to 13.3 % of women from the Islamic religion would not accept CS under any circumstance. The positive perception of CS among mothers can be closely related to the study area (university community) where everybody has a pre-knowledge of CS. Logistic regression showed that women's low level of education, and past successful vaginal and instrumental deliveries, were most likely to be associated with women's non-acceptance of indicated CS. Further analysis showed that this was mainly due to inaccurate cultural and religious perceptions of labour and CS in the cohort of women.

Conclusion: There is a need for programs to increase women's and community’s perceptions of CS as a method of delivery in Nigeria.

Key words: Attitude and perception, Caesarean section, Knowledge, State Hospital Ijebu-Ode