Prevalence and Some Sociodemographic Predictors of Female Genital Mutilation among Mothers Attending Antenatal Clinics in Port Harcourt Local Government Area, Rivers State

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and sociodemographic predictors of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) among mothers attending antenatal clinics in Port Harcourt Local Government Area, Rivers State. A total of 487 respondents made up of women of childbearing age (15-49 years) randomly selected from some antenatal clinics in the area were involved in this study. A structured questionnaire, self-administered to the respondents with a reliability coefficient of 0.86 was used for the collection of data. The SPSS 22.0 was used for the analyses of the collected data. Frequency, percentage, chi-square and regression analysis were the statistical tools used to analyse the data. The mean and standard deviation of the age of the respondents and number of children were 30.1±6.6 and 3.4±1.9, respectively. An FGM prevalence of 35.1% was reported. Sociodemographic factors studied included age (X2-value = 40.389, df = 3, p<0.05), marital status  (X2-value = 54.268, df= 4, p<0.05) and educational attainment (X2-value = 178.67, df = 3, p<0.05). There was a strong relationship between the sociodemographic factors and the practice of female genital mutilation. The results show that curbing FGM knowledge and public awareness of its short and long-term consequences is important in order to reduce its prevalence. Government policies should be implemented to help stop this practice. Community health-based campaigns against female genital mutilation should be increased and maintained.