Does facility readiness promote high-quality of provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling to pregnant women? A national survey for improving policy of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Tanzania.

Background: Provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling (PITC) is a recommended approach to screen for HIV to all pregnant women during antenatal care (ANC) visits, and all with HIV positive results have to be enrolled into prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) program. However, little is known about the relationship between facility readiness and the uptake of PITC to pregnant women attending ANC in Tanzania. Therefore, this study assessed whether the facility readiness promotes the uptake of PITC to the pregnant women attending ANC for the purpose of improving the PMTCT interventions in Tanzania.

Methods: This study analyzed data for health facilities obtained from the 2014-2015 Tanzania service provision assessment survey. The Primary outcome measure was a composite variable (with score of 0-5) in which its higher scores indicates provision of high-quality of PITC. Also, facilities scored higher in the PMTCT service readiness index were considered to have high readiness to provide PMTCT services. In Poisson regression analyses, a series of models were fitted to assess whether there is an association between provision of high-quality of PITC and facility readiness. In all statistical analysis, a P < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Out of 1853 included first-visit ANC consultations, only about one-third of pregnant women received all five components required for PITC. The mean percentage of PMTCT readiness score was moderate 63.96 [61.32-66.59]%. In adjusted model, we found that facility with high readiness to provide PMTCT services was significantly associated with the provision of high-quality of PITC (model 2: [β = 0.075, P = 0.00]).

Conclusion: In order to increase high-quality of PITC services, efforts should be made to improve the PMTCT facility readiness by increasing availability of trained staffs, diagnostic tools, and ARTs among health facilities in Tanzania.