Level of Practice of Safety Precautions against COVID 19 among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal clinics in Central Hospital Benin, Benin City in Nigeria

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has assumed a global health concern since the first case was recorded in Wuhan community China in December 2019. The objective of this paper is to report the level of practice of safety precautions against COVID 19 among pregnant women attending Antenatal Clinics in Central Hospital Benin, Benin City in Nigeria. A self- administered questionnaire on the level of practice of safety precautions against covid19 infection was administered to a total of 420 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in central Hospital Benin City for Data collection. The results showed that two hundred and four (48.6%) of the respondents reported that they have recently avoided crowded places. Three hundred and seventy two (88.6%) reported recently wearing mask whenever they left home. Three hundred and twenty four (77.1%) of the respondents had good practice of safety precautions against COVID19. The study showed a good practice of safety precautions against COVID19 and this was influenced by the women’s level of education, occupation and knowledge of COVID-19. However, there is still the need to improve the knowledge of the women attending antenatal clinic regarding COVID-19 through health education seminars. Also up scaling the practice of safety precautions could be done through such health education seminars.

Keywords: Pregnant women, Practice, Safety precaution, covid-19