An Assessment on Pregnant Women's Utilization of and Attitude Towards Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing Service: the Case of Gondar town
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Date
2008-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Voluntary counseling and HIV testing for pregnant women is a starting point for instituting
an MTCT prevention program. The objective of this study was to assess pregnant women's
utilization of and attitude towards voluntary HIV counseling and testing service. A crosssectional
study design was used in which data was collected using a structured
questionnaire administered in a face to face interviews. The study was conducted in
Gondar town at two hospitals and one health center, namely, Gondar University hospital,
Defense hospital and Gonder health center. The study sample comprised of 176 pregnant
women aged from 18 to 38 years. It was found that most of the respondents had good
knowledge of mother to child transmission of HIV and its prevention; and voluntary HIV
counseling and testing service. Similarly, most of them had a positive attitude towards
Voluntary HIV counseling and testing service. However, most (93.18%) of them had never
used voluntary HIV counseling and testing service because of the presence of different
factors. Except age other variables (level of education, occupational status and marital
status) had no significant relationship with utilization of VCT service at 0.05 level of
significance. The study indicated that good knowledge about MTCT and VCT; and positive
attitude towards VCT did not contribute to pregnant women's utilization ofVCT service
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Keywords
Hiv Counseling