UTILIZATION OF HIV PREVENTION MEASURES FOR MOTHER-TO-CHILD TRANSMISSION AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN IN RIVERS STATE: A HOSPITAL-BASED STUDY

This study investigated the determinants of utilization of preventive measures against mother-tochild transmission of HIV among positive pregnant women in teaching hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional research design was used for this study with a sample size of 238 which was selected using the simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.81. Data was analyzed using percentage, mean, standard deviation, and simple regression at 0.05 alpha level. The findings of this study shows that. The finding of the study also showed that the utilization of PMMTCT of HIV was determined by factors such as socio-economic status (𝑋̅ = 3.26±0.75), cultural belief (𝑋̅ = 3.17±0.69). There was a statistically significant high positive relationship between the utilization of PMMTCT and factors such as age (r = 0.953; p<0.05), educational level (r = 0.893; p<0.05), parity (r = 0.867; p<0.05). The study concluded that, the determinants of the utilization of PMMTCT of HIV was cultural belief, followed by others such as socio-economic status, age, educational level, and parity. It was recommended that, the health sector should incorporate community stakeholders in their effort to increase the utilization of PMMTCT, as they can assist in discouraging some of the cultural beliefs which are not favourable to PMMTCT