Prevalence of gestational malaria among pregnant women attendiing anatenatal care in selected primary healthcare centres in Oluyole local government area of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria

This study ascertained the prevalence of gestational malaria among pregnant women attending antenatal care in selected primary healthcare centres in Oluyole Local Government Area, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The study was a cross-sectional design which involved pregnant women and a structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data collected. Result showed that most (42.0%) of pregnant women fell within the age range 25-34 years and quite a large number (74.3%) of the pregnant women had tertiary education. From the finding, 72% of the pregnant women were screened for malaria during current pregnancy while 28% were not screened for malaria during current pregnancy. Out of the 72% pregnant women that were screened for malaria, 59.3% indicated that they were negative, 10.3% stated that they were positive and 2.3% specified that they cannot remember. Furthermore, 83% of the pregnant women stated that they were infected with malaria during current pregnancy while 17% specified that they were not infected with malaria during current pregnancy. The multiple regression analysis showed that age (-.091), marital status (-.100), education (-.063), and average monthly income (-.523) had negative effect while occupation (.081) and religion (.130) had positive effect with the prevalence of gestational malaria. It was recommended that malaria control measures such as administering of intermittent preventive treatment (IPTp) of malaria for pregnant women  should continue to be administered to all pregnant women during antenatal visit and pregnant women should be educated on the regular-use of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) during pregnancy.