Perception of Harmful Traditional Practices Among Women of Childbearing Age in Oru West Local Government Area, Imo State

Abstract

Harmful traditional practices pose severe health risks to girls and women. Women’s perception of harmful traditional practices may assist in their eradication or perpetuate them. There is paucity of research on perception of harmful traditional practices among women in Oru West LGA, Imo State. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted for the study. The study population comprised 31,838 registered women of child bearing age who registered for ANCs from January, 2014 to September, 2014 in Oru West LGA, Imo State at the time of study. A sample of 384 women of childbearing age was used for the study. The multistage sampling procedure was adopted to select the sample. The instrument for data collection was a structured Questionnaire on Perception of Harmful Traditional Practices among Women. The questionnaire was validated by three experts. Reliability co-efficient of the instrument was 0.81. Data analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 20). The results showed that 49.3 per cent of women perceived identified traditional practices as harmful to women. Age of women had influence on perceived harmful traditional practices while no significant difference was found in the perception of harmful traditional practices based on women’s level of education. This study envisages that harmful traditional practices are prevalent in different cultural backgrounds in Nigeria with attendant health risks for girls and women. Potential interventions include: Public health promotion activities such as advocacy, economic empowerment and capacity building programmes for women and girls particularly in rural communities.