Investigating Entrepreneurial Success Factors of Businesses Owned by Nigerian Women in the UK

The aim of this study is to investigate the entrepreneurial success factors of Nigerian women entrepreneurs based in the UK. An exploratory case study approach was used to gather the primary data from 15 small businesses run by Nigerian women entrepreneurs in the UK. The data collection was conducted through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, observations, and published sources. The data was thematically analysed using NVivo. The main findings indicated that Nigerian women entrepreneurs in the UK primarily depend on personal traits, self-funding, work experience, personal satisfaction, physical networking, and family support for business success. The most significant entrepreneurial success factor was the personal success factor. The study provided feasible recommendations for Nigerian women entrepreneurs based in the UK to put emphasis on environmental success factors and online networking, taking advantage of social media platforms for easy and quicker reach of more customers and business partners.

Safety of Women Journalists in Nigerian News Media

In recent decades, women journalists' professional safety has attracted an enormous research attention globally and in Nigeria. Interestingly, often similar findings are likely generated by most of the studies highlighting stiff gender-based challenges. This chapter investigated the safety experiences of Nigerian women journalists to identifying the typology of gender-based discriminations and coping strategy affected women journalists used to manage to work in a male-dominated media industry. Employing a semi-structured interview approach, 37 participants (25 women journalists, 10 men journalists, and 2 human resource managers) were interviewed from 12 broadcast media organisations in Northern Nigeria. The data were analysed using thematic analysis and the findings showed that Nigerian women journalists experience different types of gendered unsafety including discrimination in newsgathering and production and sexual harassment; most of the affected women used risky coping strategies such as ignoring; most media organisations lacked policies and frameworks to handle such cases.

A Matched Case-Control Study of Beans Intake And Breast Cancer Risk in Urbanized Nigerian Women.

Purpose. Beans intake has been associated with reduced risk of breast cancer (BRCA), however; only few studies considered molecular subtypes status and none in African women. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the associations between dietary intake of beans and BRCA including its subtypes in Nigerian women.Methods. Overall, 472 newly diagnosed patients with primary invasive BRCA were age-matched (±5 years) with 472 controls from the Nigerian Integrative Epidemiology of Breast Cancer (NIBBLE) Study from 01/2014-07/2016. We collected dietary intake of beans using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Beans intake was categorized into three levels of never (never in the past year), low (≤1 portion/week) and high intake (>1 portions/week). We used conditional and unconditional logistic regression models to estimate the Odds Ratio (OR) of beans intake and the risk of overall BRCA and by its molecular subtypes.Results. The mean (SD) age of cases was 44.4(10.0) and of controls was 43.5(9.5) years. In the case group, more than half (51.1%) has never consumed beans alone in the past year compared to 39.0% in the control group. In multivariable models, we found significant inverse associations between beans intake and overall BRCA risk (OR=0.57; 95%CI: 0.38-0.85), hormone receptor-positive BRCA (OR=0.45, 95%CI: 0.23-0.90) and triple-negative BRCA (OR=0.47 95%CI: 0.25-0.88). Conclusion. Dietary intake of beans of more than one portions a week is associated with reduced risk of BRCA in African women and it may play a significant role in reducing the incidence of BRCA particularly of the more aggressive triple-negative subtype, which is more prevalent in SSA.

Shifts in social support: A phenomenographic study of Nigerian women who have had a stillborn baby

<p>Each year in Nigeria 314,000 mothers lose their babies to stillbirth. This study investigates the implications of these stillbirths for Nigeria’s Yoruba women, especially in relation to their social networks. The study is theoretically framed within the theory of social capital and the research methodology is phenomenography, a qualitative approach that concerns itself with difference in relation to experience. Twenty mothers of stillborn babies were purposefully recruited from Saki, a Yoruba community in South-west Nigeria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participants’ drawings and a focus group discussion. The transcribed data were analysed according to the principles of phenomenography. This yielded four broad categories: (1) relationships change; (2) relationships matter; (3) material support makes a difference; and (4) health professionals neither help nor support. These findings indicated that stillbirth interfered with the social networks of the participants, leading to a decline in their social networks and an emergence of the family as the primary source of support. The participants gained encouragement and empathy through their relationships with others but received minimal material support, even though it was badly needed. The participants expressed distrust in health professionals due to a lack of compassionate care. This study contributes to the understanding of stillbirth bereavement in three different ways. First, culture really matters in how mothers of stillborn babies express their grief, how they are supported and how they would want to be supported. Second, there is still a deficit of kind, compassionate and skilled nursing care for mothers of stillborn babies. Third, support becomes smaller, but more intense for mothers after suffering a stillbirth. This study, therefore, adds to the ongoing global conversations about how better bereavement care can become more realistic for mothers of stillborn babies by extending the theory of social capital and the methodological approach of phenomenography to the issue of stillbirth bereavement. The study concludes with recommendations for nursing, for research and for policy.</p>

Shifts in social support: A phenomenographic study of Nigerian women who have had a stillborn baby

<p>Each year in Nigeria 314,000 mothers lose their babies to stillbirth. This study investigates the implications of these stillbirths for Nigeria’s Yoruba women, especially in relation to their social networks. The study is theoretically framed within the theory of social capital and the research methodology is phenomenography, a qualitative approach that concerns itself with difference in relation to experience. Twenty mothers of stillborn babies were purposefully recruited from Saki, a Yoruba community in South-west Nigeria. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participants’ drawings and a focus group discussion. The transcribed data were analysed according to the principles of phenomenography. This yielded four broad categories: (1) relationships change; (2) relationships matter; (3) material support makes a difference; and (4) health professionals neither help nor support. These findings indicated that stillbirth interfered with the social networks of the participants, leading to a decline in their social networks and an emergence of the family as the primary source of support. The participants gained encouragement and empathy through their relationships with others but received minimal material support, even though it was badly needed. The participants expressed distrust in health professionals due to a lack of compassionate care. This study contributes to the understanding of stillbirth bereavement in three different ways. First, culture really matters in how mothers of stillborn babies express their grief, how they are supported and how they would want to be supported. Second, there is still a deficit of kind, compassionate and skilled nursing care for mothers of stillborn babies. Third, support becomes smaller, but more intense for mothers after suffering a stillbirth. This study, therefore, adds to the ongoing global conversations about how better bereavement care can become more realistic for mothers of stillborn babies by extending the theory of social capital and the methodological approach of phenomenography to the issue of stillbirth bereavement. The study concludes with recommendations for nursing, for research and for policy.</p>

Ovarian reserve in nigerian women with sickle cell anaemia: a cross- sectional study

Introduction Sickle cell disease is the most common monogenetic disorder worldwide. There have been reports of endocrine dysfunction and gonadal failure among affected individuals, especially in males. The findings on ovarian reserve and failure in women with sickle anaemia have been inconsistent. Aim and objective The aim of this study was to determine and compare the ovarian reserve of Nigerian women with and without sickle cell anaemia attending a University Teaching Hospital. Study Design This cross-sectional study was carried out at the Adult Sickle Cell Clinic and the Community Health Clinic of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Methodology A total of 166 participants who met the selection criteria, were recruited for the study. The study population consisted of two groups of women matched for age: 83 women with HbSS and 83 women with HbAA. The haemoglobin phenotype of each participant was determined on alkaline electrophoresis (pH 8.4) before analysis. Serum Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) was determined using Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method (Calbiotech Inc. USA, Catalog no AM448T). Results The mean ± SD of serum AMH level in women with HbSS was 3.64 ± 0.65 ng/mL and was lower than that of women with HbAA 7.35 ±1.19 ng/mL (p < 0.001). Serum AMH negatively correlated with age in both study groups (HbAA and HbSS). Also, a significant negative correlation was found between serum AMH and BMI in women with HbAA. Conclusion The study showed diminished ovarian reserve in women with HbSS when compared to age-matched women with HbAA.

Reproductive Endocrinologic Pattern in Infertile Black Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

Background: Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a very common endocrine cause of infertility affecting about 10% of women of reproductive age. We evaluated the pattern of reproductive hormones in infertile Nigerian women with PCOS. Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital over a 6-month period in which One hundred and fifty infertile women, with diagnosis of PCOS using the Rotterdam’s criteria, had quantitative assessment of their reproductive hormones like Luteinizing Hormone (LH), Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), Progesterone, Testosterone, Prolactin and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), with relevant socio-demographic and clinical data noted in the study proforma. Z test, chi-square and correlation tests were used as appropriate to analyse the data with p<0.05 significance level. Results: The mean age of infertile women with PCOS was 26.50±4.4years; all the women had either oligomenorrhea (62%) or secondary amenorrhea (38%), 56.5% were obese and 33.3% had hirsutism. While 37.7% of the women had abnormally elevated serum LH, 16.4% had high serum FSH, 39% had LH:FSH ratio> 2.5, 96% had low serum progesterone, 29% had high serum prolactin, 17.4% had high serum TSH values and 92% had features of polycystic ovaries on trans-vaginal ultrasound. Correlation of age and BMI with serum FSH, LH and prolactin values were weak and insignificant. Conclusion: PCOS is common among young Nigerian women presenting for infertility treatment; with dominant features of oligomenorrhea and polycystic ovaries. Hormonal abnormalities are common, varied and not associated with other clinical characteristics.