Belief about HIV/AIDS Transmission and Prevention among Pregnant Women in Felege Hiwot Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are global health problems. Since AIDS is not only a vital medical problem, but also a socioeconomic complication, increasing people's knowledge and replacing their fatalistic belief by a non-fatalistic belief is important to decrease prevalence of the problems. The objective of the study is to examine beliefs about HIV/AIDS of pregnant women and to study the relationship between their belief and HIV/AIDS prevention behaviors. A cross-sectional structured and semi-structured interview with mixed method approach based survey was used. Convenience sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data was analyzed using SPSS V.15. Our result demonstrated that, out of 422 respondents 336 (79.6%) and 86 (20.4%) had a non-fatalistic and a fatalistic belief, respectively. Majority of the respondents 407 (96.4%) believe that HIV can be transmitted from mother to child and small proportion 15 (3.6%) don't believe the transmission of HIV from mother to child. The findings showed that 20% of the women were fatalistic and that their beliefs about AIDS may affect prevention behaviors. Fatalistic believe is one of the factors influencing HIV/AIDS prevention behaviors, but it is a vital factor for health professionals to consider when developing future HIV/AIDS prevention strategies among fatalistic people.