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Background: Maternal death reviews and obstetric audits identify causes and circumstances related to occurrence of a maternal death or serious complication and inform improvements in quality of care. Given Nigeria's high maternal mortality, the lessons learned from past experiences can provide a good evidence base for informed decision making. We aimed to synthesise findings from maternal death reviews and other obstetric audits conducted in Nigeria through a systematic review, seeking to identify common barriers and enabling factors related to the provision of emergency obstetric care. Methods: We searched for maternal death reviews and obstetric care audits reported in the published literature from 2000-2014. A 'best-fit' framework approach was used to extract data using a structured data extraction form. The articles that met the inclusion criteria were assessed using a nine point quality score. Results: Of the 1,841 abstracts and titles at initial screening, 329 full text articles were reviewed and 43 papers fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Four types of barriers were reported related to: transport and referral; health workers; availability of services; and organisational factors. Three elements stand out in Nigeria as contributing to maternal mortality: delays in Caesarean section, unavailability of magnesium sulphate and lack of safe blood transfusion services. Conclusions: Obstetric care reviews and audits are useful activities to undertake and should be promoted by improving the processes used to conduct them, as well as extending their implementation to rural and basic level health facilities and to the community. Urgent areas for quality improvement in obstetric care, even in tertiary and teaching hospitals should focus on organisational factors to reduce delays in conducting Caesarean section and making blood and magnesium sulphate available for all who need these interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Menstrual hygiene is keeping the body clean while a woman is menstruating. Many females have encountered considerable difficulty maintaining menstrual hygiene because of a lack of awareness or access to menstrual products, particularly in low- and middle-income nations. However, knowledge and practice of menstrual hygiene among female undergraduates, especially in Nigeria, are understudied. This descriptive crosssectional study investigated the knowledge, practices and barriers associated with menstrual hygiene among female undergraduates of a private university in Nigeria. Three hundred and sixty-four participants were recruited using purposive sampling. Sociodemographic data, knowledge, practice and barriers associated with menstrual hygiene were assessed using a self-report knowledge and practice of menstrual hygiene questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed that most respondents (72.3%) had poor knowledge of menstrual hygiene, while around half (49.2%) maintained good practices. The most common barriers to practicing menstrual hygiene among the respondents were reported as fatigue and limited water access in their dormitories. Therefore, schools of higher learning need to ensure that students have regular access to clean water with adequate time between classes to allow for proper menstrual hygiene practice. Nurses could provide menstrual education for mothers and their adolescents before getting into university. Similarly, nurses working in institutions of higher learning should provide regular menstrual hygiene awareness programs on campus and advocate for access to clean water and hygiene facilities for female students undergoing menstruation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High nurse-patient ratios are burdensome for nurses and seem to be associated with shift work disorder. This study determined nurses' workload using nurse-patient ratios as indexes and examined the influence of workload burden on shift work disorder (SWD) among nurses. Methods: An ex-post facto design was utilized and was conducted in selected tertiary hospitals in Southwestern Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 422 respondents. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was analyzed with SPSS Version 20. Results Mean of respondents working on the wards was 13 ±5.1; the average nurse-patient ratio was 1: 8 ± 6.4. Prevalence of symptoms predictive of SWD was (49.6%). More than half of the nurses (55.9%) had high workload, while (44.1%) had low workload. Workload was significantly associated with insomnia (χ² = 7.07, p = 0.001), and sleepiness (χ²= 5.77, p = 0.01) among nurses. Conclusion: The study concluded that nurses who had more patients to care for had more symptoms predictive of shift work disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]