Fertility Desire and Contraceptive Utilization among People Living With HIV/AIDS on ART in Hosanna Town, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Article Information HIV positive individuals may or may not have intention to have children. They could also have different degrees of utilization and demand for contraception. The desire of HIV infected persons to have children in the future has implication for the transmission of HIV to sexual partners or newborns. The study was designed to assess the fertility desire and contraceptive utilization among PLWHAs on ART in Hossana town. Institutional based cross sectional study supplemented by in-depth interview was conducted from January to March 2010 on total sample of 321 who were on ART. Women 18-49 years and men 18-59 years were included. Data was entered by using EPI info 2000 then exported and analyzed by SPSS 17.0. Total of 117 (36.45%) of respondents were desiring children. Respondents with no children (AOR 60.89, 95% CI 8.02-462.05), those who intended to use family planning in the future (AOR 4.35, 95% CI 1.61-11.73) were more likely to desire children. 102(31.8%) were using family planning. Being married (AOR 7.83, 95% CI 1.08-56.79), having three or more children (AOR 4.54, 95% CI 1.12-18.48), and having knowledge on mother to child transmission (AOR 4.29, 95% CI 1.98-9.26) plan to have children in the future (AOR 0.29, 95% CI 0.1-0.82) were significantly associated with family planning. A high proportion of HIV positive individuals desired children. A better and evidence based understanding of fertility intentions and demand for contraception was needed to promote and protect women and men living with HIV/AIDs to make informed decisions about reproduction and to have access to appropriate sexual reproductive health services.

Fertility Desire and Associated Factors among Sexually Active HIV Positive Women at Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: Institution-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…On the other hand, the nding of the current study was lower than evidences from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia(54.6%) [22],Cameroon (83.3%) [12],Democratic Republic Congo(64%) [11]. However, prevalence of this study was higher than the study done in Hosanna Town ,southern Ethiopia(36.3%) [6], Ababa, Ethiopia(40.8%) [8],Central Brazil (25.9%) [23],Kenya (26.4%) [24].The difference could be explained in terms of dissimilarities in sociodemographic of study populations and cultural concerns about having family and fertility desire.…”

“…The nding is in line with studies done in Jimma town, Ethiopia and Harari Regional State, Eastern Ethiopia but in contrast with the study done in Hosanna Town, Southern Ethiopia. [6,13,14]. This could be also due to the in uence of health care providers counselling and awareness of study participants about vertical transmission of HIV.Increasing awareness about vertical transmission of HIV among HIV-positive clients is powerful means of fostering family planning use to reduce HIV transmission [25].…”

“…Of these, almost one -third (30%) were from Amhara Regional State. Prevalence of HIV among women of reproductive age is 1.2% which is higher than men (0.6%) in the same age [4].Accordingly, to end HIV/AIDS epidemic in 2030, intervention to meet the need of reproductive health; speci cally the need related to fertility desire of these population group must be prioritized as many HIV-positive women continue to want to have children despite knowledge of their HIV status [5][6][7][8][9].Consequently, the desire of HIV-positive women to have children has important implication for transmission of HIV to sexual partners and newborns [6].…”

“…In studies conducted in Rwanda, Cameroon, and Democratic Republic Congo, for example, the proportion of HIV-positive women who desired to have children in the future were 45.8%, 65% and 83% respectively [10][11][12] .In Ethiopia, a few studies have revealed different level of fertility desire among women living with HIV.Studies in Addis Ababa, West Ethiopia, and Jimma, Ethiopia indicated that 40.8% ,42% and 46.8% of HIV positive women had fertility desire respectively [8,9,13].Studies in different settings have pointed out different factors which determine the fertility desire of HIV-positive women. For example, family planning use in HIV positive women was found to be signi cantly associated with fertility desire [6,13,14].An increased fertility desire is found to be associated with absence of living children in several studies across the world [5,6,[14][15][16][17]. However, a study in the United States showed a decreased fertility desire among women of HIV-positive with absence of living children [18].In Ethiopia, although few studies are conducted in different health care institutions regarding fertility desire of HIVpositive women and associated factors with it, the information is inadequate.…”

Demand for modern family planning among married women living with HIV in western Ethiopia

“…However, there is considerable evidence that HIV infected women have high rates of unmet need for contraception [2,10,11,12,13]. Previous studies in Ethiopia have focused on demand and unmet need for family planning among married women in general population [2,14].…”