ASSESSMENT OF MALE INVOLVEMENT IN PMTCT SERVICE AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN WEST BADEWACHO DISTRICT, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Male partner participation in PMTCT is a crucial component to optimize antenatal care/prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV service. But male involvement in prevention of Mother to child transmission of Human Immuno Virus was one of the challenges in in most low and middle income countries including Ethiopia and the participation of men in Prevention of mother to child transmission of program is lower as compared to that of women. Even though studies identified different factors and program were done at community level in Ethiopia, the mentioned its factors were inconsistent and no more study was done at the area. Objective: To assess male involvement in Prevention of mother to child transmission of Human Immuno Virus service and associated factors among male partners of currently pregnant mothers in West Badawacho District, Southern Ethiopia, March 1-30, 2020 G.C. Method: A community Based cross-section study was conducted in West Badawacho District, Southern Ethiopia, from March 1-30, 2020, by using firstly cluster sampling with simple random sampling, the total number of sample size with proportion to population size. Pre-tested structured questionnaire were used to collect data. Data were collected from 564 respondents. The data were primarily cleaned, coded and entered in to Epi-Data 3.1 and exported to SPSS 22 for analysis; the significance of the variables was done. Result: Overall male partner involvement in prevention of mother to child transmission of Human Immuno Virus was 24.3% [95% (20.6-28.1)]. Living in urban [AOR =2.4; 95%CI(1.13-5.267)], knowing their HIV sero-status [AOR=3.58; 95% CI (2.1-6.25)], having good PMTCT knowledge [AOR= 2.94; 95%CI (1.63-5.3)], having good ANC knowledge [AOR=3.998; 95%CI (2.3-6.95)] and low socio-cultural barriers [AOR=3.35; 95% CI (1.568.267)] were significantly associated with male’s involvement in PMTCT service. Conclusion: the result of this study revealed that male involvement in PMTC was low (24.3%) in this study area. Being urban resident, HIV sero status, good PMTCT knowledge, good ANC knowledge and low socio-cultural barriers were significantly associated male partner’s involvement in PMTCT service.