Improving universal prenatal screening for human immunodeficiency virus.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of implementation of a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) educational intervention on universal screening for HIV in a prenatal clinic setting. METHODS: In this retrospective cohort study, frequencies of offering and acceptance of HIV testing were compared before and after an educational intervention performed by an HIV-focused nurse. The records of 293 women seeking prenatal care before the intervention and 206 women seeking prenatal care after the intervention were reviewed for offering and acceptance of HIV testing. Fisher's exact test and logistic regression were used to evaluate the relationship between the educational intervention and the offering and acceptance of HIV testing. RESULTS: The frequency of HIV test offering at first visit and test acceptance before the educational intervention were 96.5% and 74.8%, respectively, and after the intervention were 99.5% and 84.3%, respectively. This improvement in offering (3% change) and acceptance (9.5% change) was statistically significant (offering at first visit: OR = 7.27, 95% CI = 1.02 to 316.9; test acceptance: OR = 1.82, 95% CI = 1.14 to 2.88). Test acceptance was statistically significantly improved in the post-intervention group after controlling for confounding variables (OR = 2.02, 95% CI = 1.2 to 3.39). CONCLUSION: The addition of an HIV-focused nurse to a clinic setting improved the frequency of test offering at first visit and of acceptance of HIV testing by pregnant women.