Knowledge, attitude, and practice towards prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV among antenatal care attendees in Ethiopia, 2020

BACKGROUND: In 2020, globally approximately 37.6 million people living with HIV and 700,000 children are born infected from their parents. Every day there are nearly 1800 new Human Immune Virus (HIV) infections in children, more than 90% occurring in the developing world. Approximately 90% of these infections are associated with mother-to-child transmission (MTCT). In 2019, Ethiopia had over 100,000 pregnancies in HIV-positive women and over 12,000 HIV-positive. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant mothers toward the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.ss METHODS: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 216 antenatal care (ANC) attendees in Gurage zone hospitals from June to July 2020. Data were collected using a structured and pre-tested questionnaire through face-to-face interviews. A Systematic random sampling technique with proportional allocation to size was used to select study subjects. Data entry and analysis were performed using Epi Data version 4.1 and SPSS version 25 respectively. RESULTS: The level of good knowledge, attitude, and practice towards Prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV among antenatal care attendees was found to be 72.2%, 79%, and 62% respectively. This study has also shown that at the time of transmission of the virus from the infected mother to her child, 38.9% of the respondents responded that it could be through breastfeeding, 38.9% during pregnancy, 16.5% during labor and 5.7% did not know respectively. All the respondents have been tested and 0.92% was positive. Nearly half, 99 (45.8%) of the respondents had tested for HIV/AIDS with their partner/husband during their ANC follow-up. CONCLUSION: In this study, the level of good knowledge, attitude, and practice towards PMTCT of HIV among antenatal care attendees were low. This finding also suggests that healthcare providers should consider the potential risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV while providing clinical health assessments during antenatal care visits. Thus, improvement of counseling sessions and knowledge of PMTCT for pregnant women attending antenatal care is needed to increase their acceptance and use of PMTCT for HIV services.