BackgroundMalaria remains endemic in Nigeria despite programmes and policies put in place toward malaria elimination. Long-lasting insecticidal nets have been documented to offer protection from malaria by preventing mosquito bites. While many studies have examined the factors associated with the use of bed nets in Nigeria and across Africa, little information is available on the factors associated with consistency of use of bed nets.MethodsThe data for this study were derived from a household survey conducted in three states in Nigeria (Akwa Ibom, Kebbi and Nasarawa) between July and September 2015 by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative, a 5-year cooperative agreement supported by the United States Agency for International Development and the US President’s Malaria initiative and led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. The analysis was limited to a total of 3884 men and women selected from 2863 households with at least one bed net. Multilevel multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the factors associated with consistency of use of bed nets.ResultsThe findings revealed 43.2% of the respondents use bed nets every night, while 38.4% use bed nets most nights. The factors associated with using a bed net every night rather than rarely or never using a bed net included sociodemographic and household variables (age, gender, religion, household size, net density, and household wealth), ideational variables (perceptions about severity, susceptibility, self-efficacy to use nets, and response-efficacy of bed net; awareness of place of purchase; willingness to pay for bed nets; attitudes towards net use; and descriptive norm about nets), and state of residence. The three study states differ significantly in terms of most of the independent variables included in the estimated model.ConclusionsThe study recommends that efforts designed to promote consistent use of bed nets should be state-specific and include strategies targeting ideational variables. Furthermore, given the significance of unmeasured heterogeneity at the cluster level, strategies to engage and mobilize the community, such as community dialogue, home visits and engaging community leadership, are relevant.

One in four pregnancies worldwide is voluntarily terminated. Approximately 20 million terminations are performed under unsafe conditions, mostly in developing countries with restrictive abortion laws. A total of 100 consecutive abortion-seekers were interviewed, to ascertain their knowledge and perceptions on the Nigerian Abortion Law. The majority (55.0%) of the respondents were students. Most of them (97%) had at least secondary education and the majority (62.0%) were within the 20-24 years age range. Only 31.0% of the women interviewed were aware of the Nigerian Abortion Law. While 16% perceived the law as being restrictive, 2% opined that' it was alright'; 1% perceived it as very restrictive and 12% had no opinion on the abortion law. Knowledge of the abortion law had no significant relationship with either the educational level of the respondent or the number of previous pregnancy terminations and overall demand for abortion services. It is necessary to ensure a wide dissemination of the abortion law and its provisions to the Nigerian public, in order to arm them with the necessary information to participate actively in debates on abortion law reforms.

Unsafe abortion is a significant contributor to maternal mortality in Nigeria, and treatment of postabortion complications drains public healthcare resources. Provider estimates of medications, supplies, and staff time spent in 17 public hospitals were used to estimate the per-case and annual costs of postabortion care (PAC) provision in Ogun and Lagos states and the Federal Capital Territory. PAC with treatment of moderate complications (US $112) cost 60% more per case than simple PAC (US $70). In cases needing simple PAC, treatment with dilation and curettage (D&C, US $80) cost 18% more per case than manual vacuum aspiration (US $68). Annually, all public hospitals in these 3 states spend US $807 442 on PAC. This cost could be reduced by shifting service provision to an outpatient basis, allowing service provision by midwives, and abandoning the use of D&C. Availability of safe, legal abortion would further decrease cost and reduce preventable deaths from unsafe abortion.

Background Northwestern Nigeria faces a situation of high fertility and low contraceptive use, driven in large part by high-fertility norms, pro-natal cultural and religious beliefs, misconceptions about contraceptive methods, and gender inequalities. Social and behavior change (SBC) programs often try to shift drivers of high fertility through multiple channels including mass and social media, as well as community-level group, and interpersonal activities. This study seeks to assist SBC programs to better tailor their efforts by assessing the effects of intermediate determinants of contraceptive use/uptake and by demonstrating their potential impacts on contraceptive use, interpersonal communication with partners, and contraceptive approval. Methods Data for this study come from a cross-sectional household survey, conducted in the states of Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara in northwestern Nigeria in September 2019, involving 3000 women aged 15 to 49 years with a child under 2 years. Using an ideational framework of behavior that highlights psychosocial influences, mixed effects logistic regression analyses assess associations between ideational factors and family planning outcomes, and post-estimation simulations with regression coefficients model the magnitude of effects for these intermediate determinants. Results Knowledge, approval of family planning, and social influences, particularly from husbands, were all associated with improved family planning outcomes. Approval of family planning was critical – women who personally approve of family planning were nearly three times more likely to be currently using modern contraception and nearly six times more likely to intend to start use in the next 6 m. Husband’s influence was also critical. Women who had ever talked about family planning with their husbands were three times more likely both to be currently using modern contraception and to intend to start in the next 6 m. Conclusion SBC programs interested in improving family planning outcomes could potentially achieve large gains in contraceptive use—even without large-scale changes in socio-economic and health services factors—by designing and implementing effective SBC interventions that improve knowledge, encourage spousal/partner communication, and work towards increasing personal approval of family planning. Uncertainty about the time-order of influencers and outcomes however precludes inferences about the existence of causal relationships and the potential for impact from interventions.