Attitude to Antenatal Exercise among Pregnant Women in Enugu State

Abstract

A cross sectional descriptive survey was conducted to determine the attitude of pregnant women towards antenatal exercise in Enugu state, Nigeria. The study population consisted of all pregnant women that attended antenatal care services in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu state from January to August 2016. Two stage sampling procedure employing simple random and purposive sampling were used to select 204 pregnant women used for the study. Researchers structured and validated questionnaire Attitude to Antenatal Exercise Questionnaire (AAEQ) was the instrument for data collection. Frequencies and percentages were used to answer the research questions while chi-square statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Results of the study indicated that majority of pregnant women (77.2%) had positive attitude to antenatal exercise. No significant difference existed in their attitude based on age (χ2=10.749, p = .105) while significant differences existed in their attitudes based on level of education (χ2=42.702, P= .001), parity (χ2=15.249, P = .040) and occupation (χ2=25.585, p= .038). The authors recommended that antenatal exercise classes should be conducted for all childbearing mothers irrespective of their parity, occupation or educational level so as to increase their knowledge and influence their attitudes for better practice of antenatal exercise.