Abstract

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This study examined the effect of health education on avoiding sharing of sharp object as a strategy for prevention of hepatitis b spread among pregnant women in Yola, Adamawa state - Nigeria. The population for this study comprises of one hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred and eighty-nine (143,689) pregnant women registered in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Out of which one thousand one hundred and ninety-four (1,194) pregnant women was used as a target population from the three (3) selected health facilities. The sample size for this study consisted of sixty (60) pregnant women who were drawn from the target population of pregnant women, thirty (30) experimental group and thirty (30) control group for the purpose of generalization. A multi-stage sampling technique that involved stratify sampling, simple random sampling, proportionate sampling and systematics sampling techniques were used for this study. The instrument used for data collection is researcher developed questionnaire and hepatitis B modules (manual). The questionnaire was score using a 4-point modified Likert scale. Pilot study was conducted to ascertain the reliability of the instrument, a reliability index of 0.919 was obtained which means that the instrument is reliable. Data were collected as pre-test scores, after the intervention another round of questionnaire was re-administered and data were again collected from the two groups (experimental and control). Data collected were analyzed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), IBM version 26. Statistical procedures used included frequencies and percentages, means and standard deviation. Inferential statistics of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used in the test of the hypotheses at the fixed probability level of 0.05. Findings revealed that six weeks health education programme has encouraged avoidance of sharing sharp objects among pregnant women in Yola Adamawa State, p- value is > 0.05. Based on the findings, the study recommended that pregnant women in Yola Adamawa State should improve on their behaviour on avoiding sharing sharp object through health education as preventive measures for hepatitis B.

Keywords: Hepatitis B, Sharp object, Pregnant women