| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
HIY/AIDS pandemic has far-reaching social, economic, health and population effects.
In addition to the harms directly inflicted on HIV -infected individuals and the
households in which they live, AIDS has had indirect effects that are nevertheless real
and substantial on communities and the whole of society. According to UNAIDS
(2013), over 1700 children become infected with HIV worldwide each day with over
95% of them getting it through mother-to-child transmission and this called for the
introduction of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) program as a
global strategy to curb such escalating vertical transmissions. While both the partners
(husband and wife) are responsible for a pregnancy, key decision making role in the
families is often a male preserve and despite this fact, reviewed literature indicates
little involvement of male partners' in PMTCT. This study is aimed at investigating
the factors influencing male partners' involvement in PMTCT program with specific
emphasis on male partners' knowledge and awareness on PMTCT, socio-cultural and
programmatic factors and providing recommendations that are specific to the context
of Asego division on how to increase male partners' involvement and consequently
increasing PMTCT uptake and reducing maternal transmission of HIV/AIDS. This
study was guided by the Health Belief Model adapted from Glanz, Rimer & Lewis'
Related Behavior Theory and adopted cross-sectional descriptive design. Data was
collected from 48 households among the 108 households from which children had
completed the 18 months of follow-up at the Homa Bay District ANC in 2012
(HBDH Monthly Activity Report; Dee 2012). Purposive sampling was used to
identify the 108 households from the patient register on the basis of completion of 18
months of follow-up; stratified sampling was employed to categorize households with
children who turned HIV positive and those who turned HIV negative and simple
random sampling finally conducted to identify proportionate representation from the
two categories with data collected using structured questionnaires and direct
observation methods. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis to capture
the opinions and perceptions on male involvement while quantitative data was
analyzed using SPSS 20 and results presented using frequency tables, pie charts and
cross tabulations. The study findings revealed that male partners' involvement in
PMTCT is largely influenced by strong fears of HIV positive results other than
knowledge deficit ofPMTCT and cultural influence. There is therefore a great need to
design culturally appropriate and gender sensitive programmatic interventions that
can address the reasons why men are discouraged to accompany their wives to the
ANCs. | en_US |
