Knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding anaemia among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at the University of Cape Coast hospital in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

Despite the adoption of prophylactic programs of iron and folate supplementation (IFAS) to prevent nutritional anaemia in pregnancy, iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) in pregnancy remains a public health issue, especially in developing countries. An efficient strategy that may be helpful prior to establishing the objectives of any nutrition intervention is to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of pregnant women before implementing any intervention. This assessed KAP of pregnant mothers attending antenatal clinic at the University of Cape Coast Hospital. A descriptive cross-sectional study involving 225 pregnant mothers who visited the antenatal clinic at the University of Cape Coast Hospital in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana was employed. A structured questionnaire from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization was used to evaluate participants’ KAPs with reference to anaemia. A simple random sampling method was used to select participants for the study. IBM SPSS Statistics version 26 was used to conduct descriptive statistical analysis, which was summarized by frequency and percentages. A chi-squared test was used to determine the relationship between categorical variables at a significance level of P = 0.05. Overall, a greater proportion of the participants, 124 (55.1%), had poor knowledge on nutritional anaemia in pregnancy. A statistically significant association (P = 0.003) was found between the knowledge and attitudes of the pregnant women regarding anaemia. Findings from this study suggest there is a knowledge deficit among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at the University of Cape Coast Hospital. The positive attitudes of the study participants regarding anaemia may not translate into their knowledge concerning a health situation.