Awareness and Utilization: Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) Services among Primigravid Women attending Primary Health Care Facilities in Zaria, North-Western Nigeria.

Background: Nigeria with an estimated population of 193 million is Second to South Africa in the number of people living with Human Immune Deficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) worldwide, representing 9% of the global burden of the disease. The objective of this study is to determine the awareness, knowledge and utilization of PMTCT services before first pregnancy in the study population, which is a critical prong 1 PMTCT strategy to prevent and control the vertical transmission of this pandemic infection.

Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study conducted in February-April 2016 among 300 Primigravid women selected by the cluster sampling technique from six Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities that offered PMTCT services out of a list of 25 PHC facilities in Zaria LGA at the time of the survey. Data were collected using interviewer administered, closed ended questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were done using the IBM SPSS version 20 and the Stata Corp STATA SE 14 to determine variables that were significantly associated with respondents' utilization of the PMTCT services. The level of significance was set at p<0.05.

Results: The mean age of the respondents and mean gestational age at booking were 21.1+3.54 years and 21.68 + 6.74 weeks, respectively. One-fifth of the respondents were not aware of any HIV preventive method, 81(27%) did not know that HIV can be transmitted from the mother to the fetus, 83 (27.7%) believed that transmission was by witchcraft, while 76%, 64% and 45% opined that use of condom, faithfulness to an HIV negative sexual partner and abstinence respectively were protective measures. Only 62(20.7%) were ever tested for HIV infection and 7(2.3%) of these were HIV positive. There were significant association between respondent age, awareness, perception and knowledge of MTCT, gestational age at booking, family setting and the prior utilization of PMTCT services (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The awareness and utilization of PMTCT services before pregnancy was poor. There was a need to scale up programmes to improve the uptake of PMTCT services before pregnancy toward attaining the sustainable development goal 3.3.