PMID- 20840784
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20101213
LR  - 20211020
IS  - 1758-2652 (Electronic)
IS  - 1758-2652 (Linking)
VI  - 13
DP  - 2010 Sep 14
TI  - Mothers' knowledge and utilization of prevention of mother to child transmission 
      services in northern Tanzania.
PG  - 36
LID - 10.1186/1758-2652-13-36 [doi]
AB  - BACKGROUND: More than 90% of children living with HIV have been infected through 
      mother to child transmission. The aims of our present study were to: (1) assess 
      the utilization of the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) 
      services in five reproductive and child health clinics in Moshi, northern 
      Tanzania, after the implementation of routine counselling and testing; (2) 
      explore the level of knowledge the postnatal mothers had about PMTCT; and (3) 
      assess the quality of the counselling given. METHODS: This study was conducted in 
      2007 and 2008 in rural and urban areas of Moshi in the Kilimanjaro region of 
      Tanzania. Mixed methods were used. We interviewed 446 mothers when they brought 
      their four-week-old infants to five reproductive and child health clinics for 
      immunization. On average, the urban clinics included in the study had implemented 
      the programme two years earlier than the rural clinics. We also conducted 13 
      in-depth interviews with mothers and nurses, four focus group discussions with 
      mothers, and four observations of mothers receiving counselling. RESULTS: Nearly 
      all mothers (98%) were offered HIV testing, and all who were offered accepted. 
      However, the counselling was hasty with little time for clarifications. Mothers 
      attending urban antenatal clinics tended to be more knowledgeable about PMTCT 
      than the rural attendees. Compared with previous studies in the area, our study 
      found that PMTCT knowledge had increased and the counsellors had greater 
      confidence in their counselling. CONCLUSIONS: Routine counselling and testing for 
      HIV at the antenatal clinics was greatly accepted and included practically every 
      mother in this time period. However, the counselling was suboptimal due to time 
      and resource constraints. We interpret the higher level of PMTCT knowledge among 
      the urban as opposed to the rural attendees as a result of differences in the 
      start up of the PMTCT programme and, thus, programme maturation. After comparison 
      with earlier studies conducted in this setting, we conclude that when the 
      programme has had time to get established, both its acceptance and the 
      understanding of the topics dealt with during the counselling increases.
FAU - Falnes, Eli Fjeld
AU  - Falnes EF
AD  - Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, Norway. 
      Eli.Fjeld@cih.uib.no
FAU - Tylleskar, Thorkild
AU  - Tylleskar T
FAU - de Paoli, Marina Manuela
AU  - de Paoli MM
FAU - Manongi, Rachel
AU  - Manongi R
FAU - Engebretsen, Ingunn M S
AU  - Engebretsen IM
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20100914
PL  - Switzerland
TA  - J Int AIDS Soc
JT  - Journal of the International AIDS Society
JID - 101478566
SB  - IM
MH  - Adult
MH  - Counseling
MH  - Female
MH  - HIV Infections/*prevention & control/*psychology/transmission
MH  - Health Facilities/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - Humans
MH  - Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical/*prevention & control
MH  - *Knowledge
MH  - Mothers/*psychology
MH  - Tanzania
MH  - Young Adult
PMC - PMC3161341
EDAT- 2010/09/16 06:00
MHDA- 2010/12/14 06:00
CRDT- 2010/09/16 06:00
PHST- 2010/03/11 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2010/09/14 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2010/09/16 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2010/09/16 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2010/12/14 06:00 [medline]
AID - 1758-2652-13-36 [pii]
AID - 10.1186/1758-2652-13-36 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - J Int AIDS Soc. 2010 Sep 14;13:36. doi: 10.1186/1758-2652-13-36.