Women's Attitude to Ultrasound Evaluation in Pregnancy in an African Setting

Objective: This is a cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge, attitude and perception of pregnant women to the use of ultrasound in antenatal investigation in an African setting. Centre: Department of Radiology, University of Benin Teaching Hospital Benin-City Nigeria Methodology: A prospective study of all women referred for ultrasound scanning between 1" November 2006 and February 2007 for antenatal investigation, who consented to interview by self administered, pre-tested structured questionnaires. Two hundred and twenty questionnaires were analyzed. Analysis was done using SPSS version 13.0 and were tested with the Chi-square and fisher's exact test within a 95% confidence interval. Results: Majority of the respondents were between the ages of 25-29 years (40%). More than half of the respondents had educational level up to tertiary level (54.5%) and a large number of them were for routine investigation (78.2%). Majority of the respondents had uncritical view of ultrasound, and few who expressed some reservations, desired reduction in waiting time and cost of procedure. Conclusion: This study concluded that high educational level of respondents, contributed to positive attitude and perception of this study group to antenatal ultrasound investigation.