The prevalence of amenorrhea in Nigeria and influencing factors.

Abstract

Background: This study investigated the prevalence of amenorrhea among Nigerian women and the factors influencing them. Particular attention was given to the women who had no period for intervals of six or twelve months. The study was designed to examine the role of socioeconomic and cultural factors in determining the interval of secondary amenorrhea among Nigerian women involved in the survey.

Methods: Secondary data was used for the analysis. The data came from the 2021 UNICEF- MICS survey across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The data was carefully filtered and sorted to suit the researcher’s interest. A multinomial logistics regression model was used for the analysis.

Results: The study found that there was a 14.3% prevalence of six months of amenorrhea and 5.4% for twelve months of amenorrhea. Again, the majority (90.4%) of women in the study had not experienced amenorrhea due to pregnancy, while 90.2% did not experience it due to contraception/sterilization. Based on detailed demographic information, the study revealed that many of the women were between the age of 15-19 years. From the binary logistic regression, the study determined the socioeconomic and cultural variables influencing the prevalence of amenorrhea, the variables with significant relationships include geopolitical zone, education, area, age, ethnicity, and wealth index.

Conclusion: The most prevalent type of amenorrhea was secondary. During the design of policy interventions, women’s sociocultural information like age, ethnicity, tribal heritage, area of residence, and education attainment should be considered to ensure effective targeting and intervention should be designed with the user to meet their specific needs for sustainability.