ABSTRACT

Background: Pregnancy brings significant physiological and hormonal shifts, potentially reducing physical activity and raising health risks like gestational diabetes. Despite its benefits, pregnant women often engage less in physical activity. Participation in physical activity has been shown to be influenced by knowledge and perception. Few studies explore pregnant women's views on physical activity. Thus, this study assessed their knowledge, perceptions, and activity levels.

Methods: The study, comprising 302 participants, employed a cross-sectional analytical survey method. Convenience sampling was utilized, drawing participants from pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Data collection involved adapted questionnaires on knowledge, perception, and the pregnancy physical activity questionnaire. Data normality checks were conducted via the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Shapiro–Wilk tests. Descriptive statistics were employed for data summary, alongside Spearman’s correlation for inferential analysis of variable relationships. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 27.

Results: The overall knowledge score of the respondents on physical activity ranged between 0 to 12 with a mean value of 10.94 ± 1.59, and overall perception score of the respondents about  physical activity ranged between 0 to 9 with a mean value of 6.08 ± 1.92. The total energy expenditure among the respondents ranged between 9.18 and 200.72 MET-h/week with a mean value of 57.14 MET-h/week (± 33.39). Knowledge and perception did not significantly correlate with physical activity levels, while demographic factors like age and parity did not show a significant correlation with respondents' knowledge and perception levels but there was a significant correlation of educational level with level of knowledge (r = 0.132, p = 0.021) and level of perception (r = 0.183, p = 0.001).

Conclusion: This study observed that respondents had sufficient knowledge and perception of physical activity (PA) and engaged in adequate levels of PA. However, knowledge and perception of PA were not significantly correlated with PA levels. Age and parity did not correlate with knowledge and perception of PA, while education levels significantly correlated with knowledge and perception of PA.

Keywords: Physical activity, knowledge, perception, pregnancy,