People's willingness to use COVID-19 self-testing in Nigeria: a cross-sectional survey

Morenike Folayan; Sonjelle Shilton; Veronica Undelikwo; Oluwatoyin Alaba; Ranmilowo Amusan; Mustapha Ibrahim; Pamela Adaobi Ogbozor; Oluyide Mojisola; Deepshikha Batheja; Abhik Banerji; Elena Ivanova Reipold; Guillermo Z Martínez-Pérez

doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2022-063323

People's willingness to use COVID-19 self-testing in Nigeria: a cross-sectional survey

BMJ Open. 2023 Jan 30;13(1):e063323. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-063323.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Child Dental Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
² FIND, the global alliance for diagnostics, Geneva, Switzerland sonjelle.shilton@finddx.org.
³ Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
⁴ Institute of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
⁵ Department of Community Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
⁶ SabonTrack Consultancy Company, Kaduna, Nigeria.
⁷ Department of Psychology, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu, Anambra State, Nigeria.
⁸ Department of Mental Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
⁹ Center for Disease Dynamics Economics & Policy, Delhi, India.
¹⁰ FIND, the global alliance for diagnostics, Geneva, Switzerland.

Abstract

Objectives: Nigeria has been badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the poor testing coverage in the country may make controlling the spread of COVID-19 challenging. The aim of this study was to assess the general public's acceptability of SARS-CoV-2 self-testing as an approach which could help to address this gap.

Setting: A household-based survey was conducted in five urban and five rural local government areas in the states of Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Kaduna and Lagos, in mid-2021.

Participants: 2126 respondents (969 were female) participated. A five-pronged, probabilistic sampling approach was used to recruit individuals older than 17 years and available to participate when randomly approached in their households by the surveyors. A 35-item questionnaire was used to collect data on their values towards SARS-CoV-2 self-testing. Primary outcomes were: likelihood to use a self-test; willingness to pay for a self-test; and likely actions following a reactive self-test result.

Results: Of the total 2126 respondents, 14 (0.66%) were aware of COVID-19 self-testing, 1738 (81.80%) agreed with the idea of people being able to self-test for COVID-19, 1786 (84.05%) were likely/very likely to use self-tests if available, 1931 (90.87%) would report a positive result and 1875 (88.28%) would isolate if they self-tested positive. Factors significantly associated with the use of a self-test were having a college education or higher (adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR): 1.55; 95% CI: 1.03 to 2.33), full-time employment (AOR: 1.67; 95% CI: 1.06 to 2.63), feeling at moderate/high risk of COVID-19 (AOR: 2.43; 95% CI: 1.70 to 3.47) and presence of individuals at risk of COVID-19 within the household (AOR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.06 to 1.78).

Conclusion: A majority of Nigerians agree with the concept of COVID-19 self-testing and would act to protect public health on self-testing positive. Self-test implementation research is necessary to frame how acceptability impacts uptake of preventive behaviours following a positive and a negative self-test result.

Keywords: COVID-19; Health policy; Public health.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / diagnosis
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Humans
Male
Nigeria / epidemiology
Pandemics / prevention & control
SARS-CoV-2
Self-Testing
Surveys and Questionnaires