Educational attainment and HIV testing and counselling service utilisation during antenatal care in Ghana: Analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys

Abstract

Introduction Receiving results for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) testing and counselling during antenatal care (ANC) is critical for eliminating mother-to-child transmission. We investigated the educational attainment of women and receiving results for HIV testing and counselling (HTC) during ANC in Ghana. Materials and methods We extracted data from the women's files of the 2008 and 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys. The study sampled 2,660 women aged 15-49 with complete data on receiving HIV testing results during ANC. We computed the highest educational attainment and receipt of HTC results for each of the surveys and presented it with a dot plot. Two Binary Logistic Regression Models were fitted to determine the likelihood of receiving HTC results by the educational attainment of the women. Results We found that receiving HTC results was highest among women with secondary or higher education (87.4% in 2008 and 89.5% in 2014) and least among those with no education (69.9% in 2008 and 76.8 in 2014). From the regression analysis, women with secondary or higher level of education [AOR = 1.535; CI = 1.044, 2.258], richest women [AOR = 5.565; CI = 2.560, 12.10], and women aged 30-34 years [AOR = 1.693; CI = 1.171, 2.952], were more likely to receive HTC results. However, those who did not know that a healthy-looking

Women’s healthcare decision-making capacity and HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa: a multi-country analysis of demographic and health surveys

“…These are survey country, age, educational level, marital status, religion, wealth status, place of residence, parity, occupation, and exposure to mass media (radio, television, and newspaper). Apart from survey country which was predetermined based on the geographical scope of the study, the selection of the rest of the variables was based on their association with HIV testing uptake in previous studies [6][7][8][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Marriage was recoded into 'married (1)' and 'cohabiting (2)'.…”

Women’s Empowerment and HIV Testing Uptake: A Meta-analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys from 33 Sub-Saharan African Countries

“… 21 So far, few studies have attempted to show the influence of women’s empowerment on HIV testing in Sub-Saharan Africa. 18 , 22 , 23 However, our study significantly extended and improved the existing body of evidence on the women’s empowerment-HIV testing relationship. First, the two indicators of women’s empowerment in this paper are created in accordance with the DHS guideline, making our findings largely comparable to other similar papers whose methodology is aligned well with the DHS statistics guideline.…”

“…In the remaining countries, there was an association between uptake of HIV test and indicators of women empowerment, with most associations being negative. Available studies link women’s empowerment with uptake of HIV testing 18 , 22 , 23 . In those studies, empowerment of women has been measured through commonly used variables like wealth and education, preventing us from making direct comparisons with our findings.…”

Women’s healthcare decision-making capacity and HIV testing in sub-Saharan Africa: a multi-country analysis of demographic and health surveys

“…These are; country, age, educational level, marital status, religion, wealth status, place of residence, parity, occupation, and exposure to mass media (radio, television and newspaper). Apart from country of origin which was predetermined based on the geographical scope of the study, the selection of the rest of the variables were based on their association with HIV testing and counselling in previous studies [6,7,8,[20][21][22][23][24][25]. Marriage was recoded into 'married (1)', 'cohabiting (2)'.…”