MALE PARTNER INVOLVEMENT IN PREVENTION OF MOTHER TO CHILD TRANSMISSION OF HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG MALES IN ANILEMO DISTRICT, HADIYA ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

ackground: Male partners’ involvement in Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV is one the challenges in most low and middle-income countries including Ethiopia. This results a lot of pregnant mothers were shunning HIV testing because they had no consent from their husbands and rise mother to child transmission of HIV. Even though studies identified different factors and program implementation was done at the community level in Ethiopia, the identified factors were no consistent and no study was done in the study area. Objective: To assess male partners’ involvement in Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and its associated factors among males whose wives gave birth in the last 12 months in Anilemo district, Southern Ethiopia, from March 1 to 30, 2019. Methods: A community based cross sectional study design was used for a total of 634 male partners in Anilemo district by using stratification for kebeles and simple random sampling for study participants. Data were collected by using a pre-tested and structured intervieweradministered questionnaire with 9 data collectors. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. Finally statistical significance was declared by p-value < 0.05 with 95% CI in multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: Overall male partner involvement in PMTCT was 32.2% [95%CI (28.5-36.0)]. Attending secondary education and above [AOR=1.81; 95%CI (1.13-2.91)], having high households income [AOR=2.54; 95%CI (1.52-4.23)] and medium household income [AOR=2.65; (1.59-4.41)], good knowledge on PMTCT [AOR=2.41; 95%CI(1.62-3.57)], good knowledge on ANC [AOR=3.48; 95%CI(2.34-5.18)], and low sociocultural barriers [AOR=2.5; 95%CI(1.69-3.69)] were significantly associated with male partner involvement in Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Conclusion: The result of this study revealed that male partner involvement in PMTCT was low (32.3%) in the study area. Secondary education and above, high and medium household income, good knowledge on PMTCT and ANC, and low sociocultural barriers were significantly associated with male partner involvement in Prevention of mother-to-child transmission. Therefore, much work is needed to engage a male partner in PMTCT by providing service through community centered.