¹Chiejina Edith Nkechi,²Kanikwu Phoebe Nwamaka

¹Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences and Technology, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka (Nnewi Campus), Anambra State Nigeria

²Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Edo State University, Uzairue, Edo State, Nigeria

The decreased immunologic competency during pregnancy calls for intensified precautionary measures against corona virus disease among pregnant women. This Cross-Sectional study focused on pregnant women’s perception of corona-virus pandemic and the precautionary measures they adopt toward curtailing the pandemic. The objectives of the study were to determine pregnant women’s view/beliefs about Covid-19 pandemic, the extent of their compliance with wearing of face masks and maintenance of social distancing. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 144 pregnant women from the primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities in Edo State out of the six States that constitute South-South Nigeria. The instrument used for data collection was a self-developed Questionnaire on pregnant women’s Perception and the precautionary measures they adopt for corona-virus pandemic (QPWPPMCP). The reliability of the instrument was conducted using internal consistency test for reliability, and the Cronbach alpha yielded coefficient of 0.711. Data collected were analysed using frequencies, percentages, mean and Spearman Rank Order correlation. Majority of the respondents indicated that Covid-19 is real (87.5%) and is existing (86.1%). 63.9% indicated that Covid-19 is caused by germ, 68.1% indicated that they always wore face masks, and 73.6% maintained physical/social distancing. There was significant relationships between pregnant women’s view about existence of Covid-19 and their compliance with wearing of face masks (rho = 0.334; p-value = < 0.001), as well as between belief about cause of Covid-19 and wearing of face masks (rho = 0.173; p-value = 0.038).

Pregnant women, Perception, Precautionary Measures, Corona-virus Pandemic, Face mask, Social distancing

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Volume 05 Issue 07 July 2022

There is an Open Access article, distributed under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.