Abstract:

Background: Folic acid supplementation is very important during the pregnancy period prevention of NTDs which is the health problem that has persisted contributing to significant morbidity and mortality. There is poor adherence whose reasons remain poorly understood, calling for the investigation to determine adherence, perception to FA and association factors among reproductive aged women.

Methods: The study was a cross-sectional descriptive community based which involved 385 reproductive aged women aged 15-49 years in Illemela district conducted in June to July 2020.

Results: Of the 385 respondents interviewed, only 20.3% had good adherence to FA, 42.6% had moderate adherence and 37.1% had poor adherence. Also only 39.7% had positive perception while 60.3% had negative perception to FA supplementation. Occupation and education level were found to be statistically significant to adherence for the p=0.03 and p=0.01 respectively. Again reasons for poor adherence to FA included 30.1% of the respondents said that the drug has bad smell, 29.1% said the side effects of the drug 15.8% said forgetfulness as the source of poor adherence to FA while 12.5% gave other reasons.

Conclusion: Few reproductive aged women in Illemela district were adherents to FA supplementation but the majority had moderate and poor adherence to FA because of the bad smell of the drug, side effects, and forgetfulness. The majority of them had negative perception on the early pregnancy use of FA supplement.