Browsing by Author "Girmay, Tewodros"

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    Capstone Report Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of Degree of Masters in Hospital and Health Care Administration
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-11) Girmay, Tewodros; Tefera, Worku; Herrin, Jeph(PhD)
    Introduction: Male partner involvement in antenatal voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) has been shown to increase uptake of interventions to reduce the risk of HIV transmission in resource-limited settings. We aimed to identify methods for increasing male involvement in antenatal VCT and determine male correlates of accepting couple counseling and how to improve these 4% of partner HIV testing. Methodology: We invited women presenting to Korem health center in antenatal clinic to return with their male partners for individual or couples VCT. Male attitudes towards VCT and correlates of accompanying female partners to antenatal clinic and receiving couple counseling were determined. Results: Of a total 225 ANC client the response rate was 95% (214), 87% (n=96), and 85% (n=191) the respondent rate were married, Tigray and orthodox followers respectively. The majority (58%) aged 19-44 years old. From the total 214 ANC clients, 145(67.8%) ANC clients brought their male partner, of which140 (96.6%) were tested as couple while the rest 5 declined to test. Sixty nine (32.2%) of the 214 ANC clients did not want to bring their male partner when invitation letter was sent. HIV prevalence among the tested couples in this study was 3.5%. Conclusions: Formulated invitation card, increasing awareness of male partner for HIV counseling and testing, and offering men at antenatal clinic with options for couple and individual counseling could increase partner HIV testing and counseling in ANC significantly, from 4% to 65.4%, at Korem health center. It was found to be an important opportunity and acceptable strategy for increasing male involvement in PMTCT and promoting male HIV testing with low cost and feasible intervention. All health center management team and board members should be committed to pursue this strategy in order to sustain it as a system. The use of weekends, in addition to the weekdays, could make the service more accessible for large proportion of “busy” clients. Future studies could benefit from such designs