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

Objectiveto assess the knowledge of HIV/AIDS and MTCT (Mother-to-child transmission) among pregnant women. Methoda 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. Results88.67% 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%).ConclusionAlthough 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.