Knowledge, attitude and practices of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV(PMTCT) among women of child bearing age, in Karu Village, Abuja, Nigeria

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: An estimated 34 million people worldwide are infected with HIV with 52% of them being women (UNAIDS, 2011), of this figure, an estimated 3.4 million are said to be children below the age of 15years. Sub Saharan Africa accounts for up to 90% of this burden in children. Nigeria, the most populous nation is Saharan African still contributes up to 30% of the global burden of mother to child transmission of HIV which is a major source of infection in children.According to the Federal ministry of health 2010 ANC survey report, the country has a prevalence of 4.1%. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where Karu village is located ranked 5th among the 36 states and Federal capital territory in Nigeria with a prevalence of 8.7%. Urban prevalence is 8.6% while the rural prevalence is 8.2%.An exploratory descriptive study was conducted among women of child bearing age (18 to 49years) living in Karu village, Abuja, FCT, North central Nigeria. A semi structured questionnaire designed to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV was administered by the researcher on 120 women of child bearing age living in Karu village after obtaining their consent. The study received an ethical review and approval from FCT human research ethics committee at the Health Department of the Federal capital development agency and Stellenbosch University, ethic committee.Findings from the 120 women who gave consent to participate showed that 28.33% had sufficient knowledge of how MTCT can occur with 77% having insufficient knowledge of how MTCT occur, 51.67% of them have sufficient knowledge of how PMTCT can be achieved while 48.33% do not. Of the participant surveyed, 89.17% of them have ever been pregnant while 24.17% were pregnant at the time of the survey, the bulk of the participants were between the ages of 18 to 34 with only 22.5% of them within the age of 35 – 49 years.From this study, women in Karu village were identified to have high level of general knowledge regarding MTCT and PMTCT of HIV but in-depth knowledge of both is still insufficient among a large group of women. Health workers and mass media were identified as key sources of information regarding MTCT and PMTCT of HIV and majority of women have favourable attitude towards PMTCT interventions but practices of these interventions is still relatively low.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University