Author's Response.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thanks for painstakingly going through the article titled “Pattern and determinants of antenatal booking at Abakaliki Southeast Nigeria.” I wish to acknowledge that your review will make the work more informative and help reduce the error margin to the barest minimum. In line 8–12, the total respondent number in Table 1 for “religion” and “parity” was given as 343 and 402, respectively, instead of 344. In “religion,” the values for Jehovah witness should be changed from 2 (0.99), 0 (0), and 3 (100) to 3 (0.99), 0 (0), and 3 (100) for total, early, and late booking, respectively. This will correct the total from 343 to 344. It was a typographical error of putting 2 as total instead of 3. In “parity,” the total parity of 402 will be 344, if para 35 is corrected from 78 (5.8), 2 (15.2), and 17 (85) to the actual values of 20 (5.8), 3 (15), and 17 (85) for the total, early, and late booking, respectively. In page no. 171, the correct value for marital status is 91.9% (316/344) which should replace 92.9 (13/14). In line 13–15, Chi-square could still be used for such conclusions if the value taken is the likelihood-ratio Chi-square with Yate's correction using Williams’ criterion when any of the cell values is less than 5. This was done in this study. In line 16–22, Table 2, which showed, “Events of previous pregnancy and its influences on the booking pattern” which was done for 233 respondents? Chronic illness should be for 233, but was wrongly generated by the Epi-info during analysis. So, 327 (95.1%), 54 (16.5), and 273 (83.5%) should be replaced by 216 (92.7), 35 (16.2), and 181 (83.8) for total, early, and late booking, respectively. Also, the total for those who had previous chronic illness should be 17 (7.3%) instead of 17 (4.9). The Chi-square and P-value should read as 0.195 and 0.659, respectively, instead of 0.567 (0.451). The P-value for influence on counseling in previous pregnancy on booking should be 0.601 instead of –0.601. It was a typographical error. In line 23–27, with reference to Chi-square testing in cell values less than 5, Chi-square could still be used for such conclusions if the value taken is the likelihood-ratio Chi-square with Yate's correction using Williams’ criterion when any of the cell values is less than 5.[1-4] This was done in this study.

Table 1

Socio demographic characteristic and booking pattern

Table 2

Events of previous pregnancy and its influences on booking pattern

The conclusion about misconception was derived from Tables 3 to 5. In table 3 the respondents suggested that the ideal gestational date for antenatal booking was in second trimester [128 (37.2%)] and third trimester [33 (9.6%)]. Table 4 also shows misconception in the row for ideal period for booking, where 29 (85.3) respondents felt that the ideal period is not in the first trimester. This is also shown in Table 5. The reasons given for not supporting early antenatal booking were that nothing is done by the doctor, pregnancy is still too early, makes one reveal her pregnancy too early, and makes one visit too frequently. These are all misconceptions. Regarding the financial constraints, it was statistically significant in the analysis, and Chi-square could still be used for such conclusions if the value taken is the likelihood-ratio Chi-square with Yate's correction using Williams’ criterion when any of the cell values is less than 5. Finally, even though Fischer's exact test could be used in place of Chi-square when any cell value is less than 5, the use of likelihood Chi-square with Yate's correction using Williams’ criterion takes care of the error margin.