Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health
Open Access

Research Article

Marital Satisfaction, Age and Alcohol Use during Pregnancy: An Empirical Study of Pregnant Women in Uyo Metropolis, Nigeria

James E Effiong¹, Okokon O Umoh^1,2* and Adedeji J Ogunleye³

¹Department of Psychology, University of Uyo, Nigeria

²Center for Research and Information on Substance Abuse, Uyo, Nigeria

³Department of Psychology, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author:

Okokon O Umoh
Department of Psychology; Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria
Tel: 2348068401977
E-mail: umohokokon@yahoo.com

Received date: Mach 22, 2016; Accepted date: May 30, 2016; Published date: June 04, 2016

Citation: Effiong JE, Umoh OO and Ogunleye AJ (2016) Marital Satisfaction, Age and Alcohol Use during Pregnancy: An Empirical Study of Pregnant Women in Uyo Metropolis, Nigeria. J Preg Child Health 3:257. doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000257

Copyright: © 2016 Effiong JE, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

A convenient sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 110 pregnant women reporting for antenatal clinical checks in both private and public medical facilities in Uyo, Nigeria to investigate marital satisfaction and age as predictors of alcohol use during pregnancy. Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale was used in dichotomizing respondents into satisfied and dissatisfied pregnant women in marriage, while an item in Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) delineated our cohorts into users and non-users of alcohol. A 2 × 2 factorial design was adopted as regards the plan of the study while a 2-way analysis of variance was used for the analysis of data collected. Results confirmed the first hypothesis which predicted that pregnant women who are satisfied in their marriages would report less alcohol use than their dissatisfied counterparts {F (1,104)=4.70; p<0.05}. Findings also confirmed our second hypothesis which stated that pregnant women who are younger would report more alcohol use than their elderly counterparts {F (5,104)=11.833; p<0.05}. Discussion of findings centered on the theories of learning which formed the nucleus of this paper and it was recommended that intervention would benefit from effective and affordable psychological counselling and treatment services for women exposed to harmful and/or hazardous alcohol use predicated by marital distress, violence, depression as well as those with limited coping skills.

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