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Background: This study aimed to assess the impact of an educational intervention on knowledge, acceptability, and willingness to pay (WTP) for dapivirine vaginal ring (DPV-VR) by undergraduate female students at the University of Nigeria (UNN). Methods: A cross-sectional design was adopted to obtain responses from the respondents using a validated 23-item questionnaire. A sample size of 1500 was estimated from five systematically sampled faculties. Their acceptability was accessed before and after educating them on the dapivirine vaginal ring (DPV-VR). WTP was determined in Naira (N490/$1) using contingent valuation. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the findings, with inter-faculty comparison done with the Chi-squared test. Results: 1017 students responded to the questionnaire. The modal age was 18–24 years (754 [74.1%]), and most of them (886 [87.1%]) were unmarried. More than half of the respondents had tested for HIV (531 [52.2%])), with 3 (1.5%), 3 (1.7%), 2 (0.6%), 2 (1.8%) and 1 (0.5%) student from Arts, Biological Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Social Sciences, and Veterinary Medicine, respectively, having positive results. Only 304 (29.9%) of the students had prior knowledge of DPV-VR. There was about a two-fold increase in the acceptability of the dapivirine vaginal ring (DPV-VR) (294 to 596) after the intervention (p ≤ 0.001). Most of the students (466 [45.8%]) indicated that they would be willing to pay < N410.00 for a single dapivirine vaginal ring (DPV-VR). Conclusions: Many of the female students at UNN were willing to use the dapivirine vaginal ring (DPV-VR); even more after they were informed of its importance. Most of the students were willing to pay less than one dollar out-of-pocket for the ring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the quality of life (QoL) of breast cancer (BC) patients using a triangulation of tools is crucial for understanding their well-being and tailoring specific interventions to improve their overall experience. The study assessed the QoL of BC patients using a combination of generic and disease-specific validated questionnaires. The study utilized a self-administered questionnaire-based cross-sectional design among BC patients attending the Oncology clinic in a Nigerian teaching hospital. The 23-item EORTC-BR23 questionnaire and the 15-item HRQoL 15D questionnaire were provided to consenting eligible respondents for data collection. Descriptive (e.g., frequency, percentages, mean, median, etc.) and inferential (T-test and one-way ANOVA) statistical analyses were conducted on the cleaned data, with significant p values set at less than 0.05. A total of 60 female BC patients participated in the study. Respondents that were aged 41–50 years and 50–60 years were 20 (33.3%) and 19 (31.7%) respectively. Patients who were diagnosed with BC one year ago before the study were 22 (39.3%) with 51 (85%) reporting no positive family history of BC. Patients who had undergone surgery, radiotherapy, hormonal therapy, and chemotherapy were 52 (86.7%), 27 (45.0%), 14 (24.1%), and 54 (90%) respectively. The patients scored 30.00 ± 4.67% and 72.36 ± 2.93% for future perspective and body image, respectively, in the functional scales of the EORTC-BR23 with a maximum possible score of 100%. On the symptom scale, they scored 47.46 ± 2.52% and 63.40 ± 5.03% for side effects of therapy and being upset about hair loss, respectively. The patients’ quality of life utility score in the 15-D tool was 0.79 ± 0.02. With p values less than 0.005, age, time since diagnosis, and cancer stage were influential determinants of patients’ QoL. The QoL of the participants based on the HRQoL-15D was determined to be high. For the EORTC-BR23, respondents reported high quality of life for body image and sexual function but low quality of life for both sexual enjoyment and future perspective in terms of the functional scale. The symptom scale of EORTC-BR23 showed high symptoms for only the domain of upset by hair loss resulting in low QoL. Socio-demographic factor that affects the QoL of BC patients were age, number of years since diagnosis and stage of BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]