Home-based HIV education increases HIV knowledge in maternal care clients

Background

Educating and testing pregnant women for HIV is critical because infected women are more likely to accept medical treatment during pregnancy, and interventions can prevent transmission to infants and partners. A maternal health organization and university-based HIV practice partnered to provide a home-based HIV education program for maternal clients in one of the maternal organization's client services area and measured changes in HIV knowledge.

Methods

The enhanced intervention in the pilot region consisted of 2-4 home visits by maternal care advocates accompanied by certified HIV counselor/testers who offered enhanced HIV education, prevention counseling, and rapid HIV testing to clients. Other regions provided basic HIV education within the maternal health home visitation program. Changes in HIV knowledge were measured by administration of an 18-question validated knowledge survey to participants before and after the education. Results of enhanced intervention region were compared to other regions.

Results

Of 515 pre-tests completed, the average knowledge score across all participants was 13.9, or 77% correct. Of participants who completed both pre-tests and post-tests, both groups showed improvement in scores, with an average difference of 2.57 in the non-enhanced sites combined (n=14; p=.001), and 3.1 in the enhanced intervention region sites (n=20; p=.002). Though there was a slightly greater increase in the enhanced intervention site, the average difference in score increase between the groups was not significant.

Conclusions

Both HIV education interventions demonstrated significant increases in HIV knowledge. Additional participants are needed to complete post-tests to determine significant differences with enhanced HIV intervention.