Perception and Willingness to Adopt a Child Among Women Attending the Infertility Clinic in a Rural Tertiary Hospital in South-South Nigeria

Background: Child adoption is the legal process carried out through an open statutory or customary laws of creating a parent-child relationship between persons who are not related by blood thereby making the adopted child have equal rights, privileges, and inheritance as the biological children of the adoptive parents. Aims and Objectives: To assess the perception, attitude and willingness to adopt children among women attending infertility clinic in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, with the aim of providing information on adoption as a possible panacea to infertility management. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State Nigeria. One hundred and thirty-four (134) women attending the infertility clinic at this facility were recruited through a systematic random sampling technique and interviewed using structured pre-tested questionnaires. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 and presented as charts, tables, and associations tested with Chi-square. Results: All of the respondents had heard of adoption, of which 91.8% knew the correct meaning of child adoption. Despite good knowledge of the meaning of adoption, only 38.1% of respondents knew what the process of adoption entails. Attitude towards child adoption was predominantly positive (73.1%). Despite the predominantly high awareness and positive attitude for child adoption, the willingness to adopt was incongruously low. Conclusion: Willingness to adopt children among these infertile women is quite low despite good knowledge and positive attitude. Acceptability and more importantly, actual follow-through with the process of child adoption is still a core issue requiring a multi-prong approach among many childless women in developing countries.