Is Cleft Lip a Spiritual Thing? – A Pilot Study of Beliefs and Attitudes amongst Some Future Primary Health Care Workers in Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria
Kehinde Kazeem Kanmodi, Abimbola Gloria Akinloye, Emmanuel Oluwatobiloba Olukoya, Amidu Omotayo Sulaiman, Oluwatoyin Roseline Adeniyi, Francis Omotayo Fagbule
International Journal of TROPICAL DISEASE & Health · pp. 1–7 · Published 1 Apr 2017
10.9734/IJTDH/2017/29487Abstract
Background: The birth of a baby with cleft lip is regarded as evil in many Nigerian communities. Cleft lip babies tend to suffer from social neglect or infanticide due to superstitious beliefs associated with their births. This study aimed to explore the awareness, beliefs, and attitudes of students in primary health care-related diploma programmes in Ibadan, Nigeria, towards babies born with cleft lip. Methodology: A pilot study was conducted among 88 students of primary health care-related diploma programmes in three conveniently selected schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. Information on their bio-data, awareness, beliefs and attitudes towards of cleft lip babies were obtained through the use of a self-administered questionnaire. All administered questionnaires were returned filled, 5 were discarded due to incomplete data. Data analysis was done using the SPSS version 16 Software. Results: The mean age (±SD) of the 83 respondents was 35.32 (±10.22) years, 72.3% were females, 69.9% were Yorubas, and 60.2% were married. Forty-six respondents (55.4%) had never seen a baby with cleft lip before, while the rest had seen at least one baby with such deformity. The majority (≥61.5%) did not believe that cleft lip could be caused by witchcraft, curses, God, evil spirits, and bad luck. Less than 60% of the respondents believed that excessive alcohol consumption, viral infection, genetic factors, cigarette smoking, irradiation, and drugs are potential risk factors for cleft lip formation. The majority (≥78.3%) showed positive attitude towards delivering health care services to cleft lip babies. Conclusion: The majority of the students of primary health care-related diploma programmes in this study were not superstitious about cleft lip. However, their knowledge of its risk factors is inadequate. There exists the need to educate them on the risk factors/aetiologies of cleft lip.
Cited by 3
Addisu Getnet, Zerihun Figa, Desalegn Tarekegn · BMC Pediatrics · 2025
Harish Saluja, Sanjay Asnani, Anuj Dadhich · National Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery · 2023
Showing 2 of 3 known citations — external sources report more than can currently be individually listed.
Related research
- Ear Diseases among Primary School Children in Ibadan Metropolis, Southwestern Nigeria — shares topic coverage
- Evaluation of Potassium Bromate in Bread in Ibadan Metropolis: Fifteen Years after Ban in Nigeria — shares topic coverage
- Antibiotic Sensitivity Profiles of Salmonella typhimurium and E. coli O157: H7 Isolates from Ready to Eat Chicken Meat in Ibadan-Nigeria — shares topic coverage
- Serological Markers of Hepatitis B Virus Infectivity among Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Negative Blood Donors at the University College Hospital, Ibadan — shares topic coverage
- Determination of Pb in Ibadan Metropolis —An Indication of Environmental Pollution — shares topic coverage
Article metrics
Real usage data collected on this platform.
0
Page views
0
PDF downloads
0
Outbound clicks
3
Citations
Views by country
Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".
No views recorded yet.
Traffic sources
Referring site, by host.
No traffic recorded yet.
Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.