Healthcare Workers Knowledge and Attitude towards Prevention of Obstetric Fistula

Background: Obstetric fistula (OF) is a preventable devastating condition mostly caused by prolonged obstructed labour and the healthcare workers (HCWs) plays a key role in its prevention.

Objective: To determine the knowledge and attitude of HCWs towards OF prevention at all levels of health care facilities in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Methods: This was a facility based cross-sectional study among 171 HCWs providing obstetric care in the primary, secondary and tertiary health centres. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather information on their knowledge and attitude towards prevention of OF. Data was analysed using SPSS 20.0 with a level of statistical significance set at p <0.05 and 95% confidence interval. The main outcome was the HCWs level of knowledge and attitude towards OF prevention. The association between HCWs knowledge and attitude and their socio-demographics and professional characteristics were also identified using logistic regression.

Results: Mean age of respondents' was 36.5 (SD= 9.3 years). Higher proportion (42.7%) of the HCWs are practising at tertiary health centre with more than one third (36.3%) of the HCWs' practising for more than 10 years. Very few 13.5% of the respondents had good knowledge of OF prevention while 91.2% of them had a positive attitude towards OF prevention. Sex, cadre, educational status and health facility of practice were found to be significantly associated with the HCWs knowledge of OF prevention (p<0.05). HCWs with MBBS/FWACS/FMCOG educational status were about four times more likely to have good knowledge of OF prevention compared to those with other educational status (OR=3.970, 95% CI=1.050-15.004).

Conclusion: Although, the HCWs studied have poor knowledge, they showed a positive attitude towards OF prevention with their educational status as an assessor of their good knowledge of the condition. Both good knowledge and positive attitude of HCWs are vital to OF prevention.