Determinants of voluntary screening, sharing of HIV status and prevalence of HIV infection in pregnant women followed in Parakou

Abstract

Objectives: HIV infection is a public health problem. One of the main modes of infection is mother-to-child transmission. The purpose of this study is to describe the barriers to voluntary HIV testing and sharing of HIV status with a partner on the one hand, and to determine the prevalence of infection and identify associated factors on the other.
Design: This is a cross-sectional study with descriptive and analytical aims in pregnant women followed in maternities in Parakou. The variables studied are the determinants of voluntary screening and sharing of HIV status, HIV prevalence. The analysis of the data was done by the software Epi data 3.1 Epi-info 7 and Stata 11. A p less than 0.05 was considered to be significant.
Results: A total of 422 pregnant women were included in the study. The average age of 24.20 ± 5.53 years with extremes of 17 years and 40 years. Among the 422 pregnant women, 94.78% agreed to undergo voluntary HIV testing in order to know their status (49%), treat themselves (22.5%) and protect the child (17.5%); 92.41% agreed to announce their HIV status to their spouse to receive their support (42.6%) and the fact that they were their confidant (29.2%). The prevalence of HIV infection is 2.5%. None of the factors studied are associated with the infection.
Conclusions: The prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women followed in Parakou is low. There are barriers to voluntary testing and sharing of HIV status with the spouse.