This study examined the response of pregnant women in Lagos State, Nigeria to
messages on COVID 19 prevention measures. Anchored on the Health Belief Model
(HBM) and the Source Credibility theory, the study adopted survey and focus group
discussion (FGD) methods for data gathering. Samples for the survey and FGD
comprised 600 respondents and 40 participants selected from 10 hospitals operating
antenatal care in five LGAs in Lagos State respectively. The questionnaire and
unstructured interview guide were used to generate the data used to answer the five
research questions guiding the study. Results show that the respondents were
extremely familiar with and practiced the majority of the government recommended
COVID-19 prevention measures, except intention to take the vaccine. Results also
show that trust and believability in COVID-19 information from sources, especially
health experts (M=1.48, SD=0.92) and not government or its agencies, positively
influenced their prevention behaviour. COVID-19 Misinformation was also found to
have negatively influenced their attitude towards the vaccine. Furthermore, socio- demographic factors including age, income, education, ethnicity and location were
found to shape the pregnant women’s responses. Consequently, the findings of this
study support the tenets of the HBM and the Source Credibility theory. The study
recommends that the government and its agencies should bridge the trust gap between
it and the public, by being more truthful and transparent about the risk level of
COVID-19, and indeed other diseases and how they plan to tackle them. Government
and its agencies, such as NCDC should attempt to curb the influx of misinformation
by collaborating with reputable fact checking organizations, social media
organizations and traditional media outlets, to fact check and debunk misinformation
as soon as they are put out in the public domain. They should also implement counter
campaigns to debunk the misinformation that COVID-19 kills pregnant women.