Perception of preconception care among women attending antenatal care clinic in a tertiary health care hospital in south east, Nigeria

Preconception care is the provision of biomedical, behavioral and social health interventions to women and couples before conception occurs. This study aimed to assess women’s knowledge, practice, perceived views and ideas and associated factors in preconception care amongst women attending antenatal care at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra state, Nigeria. A facility based cross-sectional study conducted among 150 randomly selected reproductive age group women who attended antenatal clinic from September 9 to September 26, 2020.The data were collected using self-administered and interviewer-administered questionnaires. The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20.0. The study revealed 31.3% overall knowledge of preconception care. The knowledge level on preconception care was significantly associated with occupation, level of education, residence, number of pregnancies and past obstetrics complications. Age has no association with the level of knowledge. Only about one-fifth of the participants have good knowledge of the importance of folic acid use prior to and during pregnancy (17.3%), 32% had wrong knowledge and the rest had no knowledge (50.7%). Majority of the participants (87.7%) had prospective views concerning preconception care encouraging every woman to partake in it. In this finding, the level of women’s knowledge on preconception care was very low. Having a high level of education, living in urban area and having an obstetrics history were associated with good knowledge. The finding also showed positive views on the uptake and practice preconception care. This finding suggests that there is a need to give more emphasis on educating women on preconception care with the sole aim of achieving a sound maternal and child health.