AWARENESS OF RHESUS FACTOR INCOMPATIBILITY AND IT'S PREVENTIVE MEASURES AMONG STUDENT OF NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT This study is on the Awareness of Rhesus Factor Incompatibility and it's Preventive Measures Among student of Nnamdi Azikiwe university. The study aim to investigate the root causes, complications and preventive measures of Rhesus factor incompatibility among students. It was guided by three research questions. It adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 43,363 undergraduates of the 14 faculties in Nnamdi Azikiwe University. The sample size was 100 students. Simple random sampling technique was used in sampling 100 students. Out of the 14 faculties in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, the researcher purposive sampled 10 faculties. The researcher developed questionnaire titled ‘‘Causes, Complications and Prevention of Rhesus Factor among Students of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka Questionnaire (CCPRFIQ)" which was used for data collection. The face validation and content validation of the instrument (CCPRFIQ) was determined. To ascertain this, the researcher presented the title, purpose of the study, research questions, and the copies of the questionnaire to three experts who are lecturers, one from the Department of Educational Foundation another one from Health Promotion and Public Health Education,and the third from Educational Management and Policy all in Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The experts were requested to examine and scrutinize the items in terms of contents, relevance, suitability, clarity and coverage of the dimensions of the study. The data used for computing the reliability indices were obtained from the 30 copies of questionnaire administered (CCPRFIQ) on a sample of 18 males and 12 female students in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Cronbach alpha was used to compute the collected data. Cronbach alpha was considered appropriate in order to determine the internal consistency of the instrument. The co-efficient for clusters I, II and III of 0.78, 0.73 and 0.71 respectively and overall coefficient was 0.74. Thus, the researcher considered the instrument to be reliable for the study. The data were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions. In answering the research questions in this study, percentage rating that falls below 50% was taken as disagreement thus rejected and any mean rating of 50% or above was taken to indicate agreement thus was not rejected. One of the major findings is that childbirth, abortion, trauma, transfusion of Rhesus-positive blood to a Rhesus-negative individual or organ transplantation are some of the root causes of Rhesus factor incompatibility. Another finding is that miscarriage and stillbirth, severe anemia, jaundice, heart failure, or even death are some of the complications of Rhesus factor incompatibility. Finally the study found out that administration of Rh immunoglobulin (Rhlg), blood type and antibody screening, blood transfusion or early delivery, close monitoring and early intervention in pregnancy are some of the preventive measures for Rhesus factor incompatibility.