Awareness of HIV/AIDS amongst Pregnant Women of Rural Areas, Patna: A Community-Based Study

Objective- to assess the knowledge of HIV/AIDS and MTCT (Mother-to-child transmission) among pregnant women. Method- a cross-sectional study was conducted on 106 pregnant women attending the OPD of PHC Sampatchak from January 2012 to June 2012. The study tool consisted of self-developed, pre-tested questionnaire. Results were analysed using SPSS latest version. Results- 88.67 % of the women were illiterate, 8.49 %had primary education and 2.83 % had an education up to middle school. Among the illiterate 79.24 % had heard of HIV/AIDS while 20.76 % had never heard of HIV/AIDS. Amongst the literates 100 % had heard of HIV/AIDS.79.24 % had knowledge regarding transmission of HIV/AIDS and most of them quoted unsafe sex practices. It was noticed that only 8 % had heard of mother to child transmission (MTCT) while 92 % had no idea that they had chances of transmitting the infection to their unborn child if tested positive. Source of information were media (12.26 %), TV (27.35 %), health personnel (57.54 %) and others (2.85 %). Conclusion- Although 80.18 % (i. e. , majority) of the women had heard about HIV/AIDS and knew some aspects of it, the knowledge about MTCT was very sparse. This is suggestive of the need to scale-up health education about MTCT in the health facilities as well as in the community. This can be done by scaling -up the knowledge of peripheral health workers with the help of government and non-government organisations.