15 Amina Abdulraheem
Channel: Virtual Midwives
Date: 2023-05-15

Effect of Nursing Intervention Program on Thermal care of Pregnant Adolescents Attending ANC at Primary Healthcare Centers in Zaria Town

Facilitator: Bernadette Karanja

Hypothermia is known to be a major cause of neonatal mortality as it complicates other diseases at early neonatal period. Pregnant adolescents are at high risk of having preterm birth, low-birth-weight babies and sub optimal thermal care practices. The study aimed to evaluate the effect of nursing intervention program on thermal care of pregnant adolescents attending antenatal clinic in Zaria town. A quasi-experimental design using a multistage sampling technique to obtain data from 302 adolescent mothers; assigned to the study and control groups; 151 participants to each group. Data were collected using structured and validated interviewer-administered questionnaire and observation checklist before and after the intervention. 

Descriptive statistics, chi-square and segmented Poisson regression were used to evaluate the effect. At pretest, no statistically significant difference in the pretest means knowledge (p-value= 0.8179) scores of mothers between the study and control groups. At post-tests, the mean knowledge and practice scores of mothers in intervention group improved significantly (P value = 0.05) at first week, 6th week, 10th week, 14th week and 6th month postpartum. Mothers in intervention group were more satisfied with their role of thermal care than those in control group (p-value 0.0000). The result of the current study is in line with a study in Egypt by Ali Abd El-Salam et al., (2019) and that of Nasir et al., (2017) in Indonesia who reported statistically significant improvement of mothers’ knowledge and practice of thermal care at posttest. There is need for midwives to continue training pregnant adolescents on thermal care.