Knowledge, Attitude and Barriers of Practice Towards Integrated Counseling and Testing Centre among Antenatal Mothers Attending Antenatal Clinic at Selected Hospitals of Gangtok, Sikkim

Introduction: Prevention of mother to child transmission aims at reducing the risk of the mother infecting her child with HIV. Comprehensive prevention of mother to child transmission programmes has nearly eliminated MTCT in developed countries. However, in settings with limited resource only 9% of all HIV positive pregnant women benefits from such services. ICTC plays an important role in Prevention of Mother Transmission to Child Transmission. Aims of the Study: The aim of the study is to assess knowledge, attitude and determine the perceptive barriers of practices towards Integrated Counseling and Testing Centre among antenatal mother. Materials and Methods: The study adopted quantitative approach and descriptive research design. The study sample included 100 antenatal mothers who attended antenatal clinic at Central Referral Hospital, Sikkim. A validated structured knowledge questionnaire, an attitude likert scale and semi structured barrier questionnaire was used for data collection. The sample selection was done using the non probability purposive sampling. Results: The result of the study revealed that 65% participant were having good knowledge, 28% were having average knowledge and 7% were having poor knowledge. 78% of participants were having favourable attitude and 22% were unfavourable attitude towards ICTC. There was also a positively moderate correlation between knowledge and attitude towards ICTC. 8% of the participants have refused to attend ICTC and 4% said that ICTC should be removed from routine antenatal check up. Conclusion: The study shows that majority of the participant were having good knowledge with favourable attitude towards ICTC. But still there is a need to increase the knowledge and attitude of the antenatal mothers through informational booklet.