A study of 352 randomly selected secondary school girls in an urban population in Southern Western Nigeria revealed a mean menarcheal age of 13.94 +/- 1.31 years and that 76.8% of girls attained menarche between ages 13 and 15 years. Age-matched pre- and post-menarcheal girls did not differ significantly in biophysical measurements, however, nutritional status was strongly and positively associated with attainment of menarche. School girls from the upper socio-economic class reached menarche 11 months earlier than the lower socio-economic counterparts. A significant finding of this study is that the declaration rate in age at menarche was slowest in girls from high socio-economic households. This deceleration was not influenced by body mass suggesting that socio-economic factors play a unique role in the secular trend widely reported in menarcheal age.

BackgroundMammography has been used in developed countries with considerable success but very little is known about this imaging modality in low resource settings. This study examined the level of awareness of mammography and determined factors influencing the level of awareness.MethodsWe conducted a hospital based cross sectional study to investigate the level of awareness of mammography among 818 randomly selected women attending the General Outpatient clinics (GOP) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. Independent predictors of level of awareness of mammography were identified using multiple logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe proportion of women who ever heard of mammography was 5%, and they demonstrated poor knowledge of the procedure. Those with primary or secondary levels of education were about three times less likely to be aware of mammography when compared with those with tertiary level of education (OR = 0.3, 95% CI, 0.12 – 0.73). Also, participation in community breast cancer prevention activities (OR = 3.4, 95% CI, 1.39 – 8.36), and previous clinical breast examination (OR = 2.34, 95% CI, 1.10 – 4.96) independently predicted mammography awareness. Newspapers and magazines appeared to be the most important sources of information about mammography screening.ConclusionThe level of awareness of mammography is poor among women attending outpatient clinics in the studied population. Interventions promoting awareness of this screening procedure should give particular attention to the illiterate and older women while clinicians performing breast examinations should utilize the opportunity to inform women about the mammography procedure. Promotion of educational articles on breast cancer and its screening methods via media remains vital for the literate.

Background Suicidality has rarely been studied in HIV-infected patients in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study explored suicidal behavior in a clinic sample of People Living with HIV in Nigeria. Methods Consecutive patients were interviewed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI-10.0) and the WHO Quality of Life (WHOQOL-HIV-BREF). Associations of suicidal behaviors were explored in logistic regression models. Results In this sample of 828 patients (71% female, mean age 41.3±10 years), prevalence of suicidal behaviors were- 15.1%, 5.8% and 3.9% for suicidal ideation, plans and attempts, respectively. Women were more likely to report suicidal ideation (OR 1.7;95%CI 1.05–2.64) compared to men. The presence of depression and/or anxiety disorder was associated with increased odds of all suicidal behaviors. Suicidal behavior was associated with significantly lower overall and domain scores on the WHOQOL. Conclusion Suicidal behaviors were common and were significantly associated with the presence of mental disorders and lower quality of life.

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Objectives HIV rapid antibody tests are widely used in Africa, but dual testing sometimes produces discordant results. It is not clear if discordant rapid HIV tests should always heighten suspicion by frontline health workers that early HIV infection is present. Some studies have reported that discordant rapid tests have value for identifying early HIV infection in high HIV prevalence populations. It is not known if rapid test performance influenced this conclusion, or if this observation will hold true for low HIV prevalence populations. We therefore explored the occurrence of discordant rapid HIV tests in a low-resource community. Methods A cross-sectional sample of HIV status-unaware adults with recent exposure to unsafe sex was assessed using a validated risk-based tool (University of North Carolina (UNC)-Malawi Risk Screening Score) for acute HIV infection. Participants received rapid testing with Determine™ HIV 1/2 and Uni-Gold™ HIV assays, plus plasma HIV-1 antigen testing with the COBAS® Ampliprep/COBAS® Taqman® HIV-1 assay, followed by western blot in those with detected HIV-1 antigen. Results Of 408 participants, 1.0% were confirmed to have established HIV infection. The discordance between rapid tests at initial screening was 2.45 and 2.94% when the two assays were used sequentially and simultaneously, respectively. Discordant rapid tests were strongly associated with risk scores > 2 [odds ratio (OR) 10.88; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.35–50.43], and with detected HIV-1 RNA (OR 26.06; 95% CI 3.91–173.60). Conclusions When the sample occurrence of discordance between the first and second tests is below 5%, discordant rapid tests in an adult with sexual risk behaviour should trigger strong suspicion of early HIV infection in low HIV prevalence populations.