Abstract

This study was carried out to ascertain if socio-economic factors determined information use on safe motherhood issues among rural women in Ogun State, Nigeria. Information is a vital ingredient for overall well-being of women. However, the extent to which rural women use information on safe motherhood has not been clearly ascertained. General observation indicates poor reproductive health status of rural women leading to increasing number of deaths during pregnancy and in the process of labour and child delivery. The use of information as a critical resource, in this regard, is often determined by certain socio-economic factors such as exposure to media, age, gender, income, education, experience, and occupation The study utilized the survey research design. A total of 550 questionnaires were administered among rural women in eight selected local governments of Ogun state using simple random and purposive sampling techniques. The return rate was 92%. The data collected were subjected to Crobach’s alpha test with an overall coefficient correlation of 0.8%. In-depth interviews were conducted among 20 stakeholders while 16 focus group discussions, comprising 320 women took place. The data were presented using descriptive statistics and further analysed with Pearson Correlation and regression analysis. There was a significant relationship between socio-economic factors and information use on issues of safe motherhood (p= .039). Major sources of health information used by rural women were health workers, family and friends and the radio while the internet, CD-ROM, libraries were seldom consulted. Government health-care facilities were the preferred port of call for rural women (56.7%), weakly followed by private health-care facilities (27.5%) and traditional birth attendants (17.7%). The study concluded that socio-economic factors as function of information use individually and collectively determined information use on safe motherhood. Thus, safe motherhood among rural women in Ogun State will be enhanced if there is significant improvement on reproductive health information, its use and provision of medical facilities. Also, both government and non-governmental organizations need to further collaborate with information professionals, health practitioners and community development units of each local government to improve socio-economic factors in a way that can positively affect information use among rural women in Ogun State.