Willingness to be screened for HIV among antenatal attendees in north central Nigeria

Background: Antenatal voluntary counseling and testing for HIV is one of the major strategies for the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. The willingness of pregnant women to embrace this strategy has implications on prevalence rates of HIV as well as maternal mortality and morbidity. This study was conducted to assess the effect of health education intervention on perception and willingness to uptake HIV screening among antenatal attendees before the advent of routine ‘opt –out' antenatal HIV screening. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out in a tertiary level hospital in north central Nigeria to recruit sequentially 122 pregnant women for each of study and control groups. Data were collected using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi square test with level of significance set at 5%. Results: Mean age of respondents was 27.6 ± 4.6 and 27.5 ±4.8 years, 76.1% and 79.3% had at least secondary education and 32.3% and 39.7% had had at least three pregnancies in each study and control groups respectively. Respondents had good perception of benefits associated with HIV screening which increased significantly among the study group post intervention (p<0.05). There was a significant increase in those willing to be screened among the study group post intervention (p<0.05). Conclusion: Routine antenatal HIV testing should be adopted as a hospital policy in hospitals where it is yet to be instituted in the context of voluntary testing and counseling.