title: Knowledge and use of the partograph among healthcare personnel at the peripheral maternity centres in Nigeria.
abstract: In an attempt to evaluate the contributory factors to the high frequency of referred cases in obstructed labour at the State's referral hospital, a questionnaire-based survey of 396 maternity care-providers from 66 randomly selected peripheral delivery units in Ogun State, Nigeria was conducted over a 2-month period, to evaluate their knowledge and use of the partograph. The majority of the personnel were nurses/midwives (45.5%) and community health extension workers (CHEW) (42.7%). Of the 216 personnel (54.5%) who were aware of the partograph, 36 (16.7%), 119 (55.5%) and 61 (28.2%) demonstrated poor, fair and good levels of knowledge, respectively. No junior CHEW had a satisfactory knowledge of the partograph. Only 39 (9.8%) of all the personnel routinely employed the partograph for labour management and almost half of these individuals had a poor level of knowledge. Efforts to limit the frequency of referred cases of established obstructed labour to the State's referral hospital should include training of care-providers at the peripheral delivery units, especially junior personnel in the effective use of the partograph, in addition to employing quality assurance measures to check inappropriate use.
authors.affiliation: Maternal and Fetal Health Research Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Obafemi Awolowo College of Health Sciences/Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Ogun State, Nigeria. tixon_y2k@hotmail.com
authors.forename: O T
authors.initials: OT
authors.lastname: Oladapo
authors.forename: O J
authors.initials: OJ
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: A O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Olatunji
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008428:Maternal Mortality; D008875:Middle Aged; D008880:Midwifery; D009549:Nigeria; D007744:Obstetric Labor Complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000379:methods*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires