Knowledge and practice of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV guidelines amongst doctors and nurses at Odi Hospital, Tshwane District

South African Family Practice

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Knowledge and practice of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV guidelines amongst doctors and nurses at Odi Hospital, Tshwane District
 
Creator Ogbonna, Kingsley Govender, Indiran Tumbo, John
 
Subject — AIDS; Anti retroviral drugs; doctors and nurses; HIV; prevention of mother to child transmission
Description Background: Almost 60 million people are infected with and 25 million people have already died from HIV/AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected, with 67% of all people living with HIV and 91% of all new infections amongst children and 14 million children orphaned by HIV-related deaths. HIV can be transmitted from a pregnant mother to her child during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. In South Africa (SA) the mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT) rate is under 4% at 4 to 8 weeks after birth since implementation of the most recent national prevention of MTCT (PMTCT) programme.Aim: This study sought to investigate the level of knowledge of nurses and doctors working at Odi Hospital in Tshwane, and whether they were putting the current PMTCT programme into practice.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was undertaken using self-administered questionnaires developed from the current PMTCT guidelines.Results: Of the 102 participants, 12 (12%) were doctors and 90 (88%) nurses, of whom 9 (9%) were male and 93 (91%) female. Mean knowledge percentage was 60.8% and mean practice percentage was 77%. Regarding knowledge, the question on HIV counselling and testing scored an average 93.1%, while that on doses of drugs used in the PMTCT guidelines scored 17.7%. For practice questions scores ranged from 71% to 82%.Conclusion: Nurses and doctors working at Odi Hospital knew that HIV counselling and testing is important and must be done for all mothers; however, they were unsure of the dosages of drugs used for PMTCT. More than two-thirds of the doctors and nurses reported practising the PMTCT guidelines, but as their knowledge was inadequate their practice may not be appropriate.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-11-02
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article —
Format application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/safp.v58i5.4591
 
Source South African Family Practice; Vol 58, No 5 (2016): September/October; 75 2078-6204 2078-6190
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://safpj.co.za/index.php/safpj/article/view/4591/5437
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Indiran Govender https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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