Involvement of family/household members of HIV positive women in family centered PMTCT : a study of a level one hospital in Limpopo province, South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Increasingly, HIV/AIDS is being viewed as a family disease. The underlying conditions thatfavour the transmission and spread of the epidemic are more often to be found in weaknesses,vulnerabilities and breakdowns of the family/household unit. The immediate impact of theepidemic is also seen within family/household units. Increasingly also, the family is beingviewed as the immediate environment for combating the epidemic. Hence HIV/AIDSinterventions are increasingly being designed and implemented in a family centred way. Infamily centred interventions, the needs of HIV affected families can be dealt with in a holisticway and not just attending to their health care needs alone.Family centred prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS exploits contact withthe pregnant woman attending maternal services as an entry point to bring whole families andhouseholds including male partners into HIV/AIDS interventions.This study carried out in Seshego Hospital, a level one district Hospital in Limpopo provincewas aimed at finding out to what extent health care workers providing maternal care engagedfamilies/households including male partners of HIV positive women in prevention of motherto child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).A survey of 34 HIV positive women from ages 19 to 43 years attending maternal careservices was carried out using a structured questionnaire.The study reveals that 52.9% of study participants reported disclosure of their HIV status to amember of the family while 47.1% had not disclosedAdmission of disclosure to male partners by the study population was 64.7% while 35.3% ofdenied disclosure of their HIV status to their male partners.The study further revealed that 53% of the study participants admitted that their male partnershad been invited to participate in PMTCT while 47% said that their male partner had not beeninvited participate.An average of 23% of survey partners reported that their male partners participated inPMTCT either by taking an HIV test, being on antiretroviral medication themselves or byuse of condoms for prevention of HIV transmission while in 77% of survey participants themale partners was reported not to be involved in any of these ways.Overall participation of a member of the family/household other than male partner in PMTCTwas reported to be 14% while in 86% of survey participants reported no involvement of ahousehold/family member in PMTCT.The low level of engagement of the families/households of HIV positive pregnant womenincluding their male partners in PMTCT found in this study implies that this important entry point into HIV prevention, treatment and care programmes is not being fully exploited.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University