TITLE:
Reproductive Health Needs of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Yaounde, Cameroon
AUTHORS:
Robinson E. Mbu, William A. Takang, Hortence J. Fouedjio, Ekane Joan, Flobert Y. Fouelifack, Florence N. Tumasang, Rebecca N. Tonye, Robert J. I. Leke
KEYWORDS:
Reproductive Health Needs; Family Planning; Unmet Needs; Cancer of the Cervix; Sexually Transmitted Infections
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of AIDS,
Vol.4 No.1,
February
26,
2014
ABSTRACT: The population plagued with the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Cameroon is young,
a generation that may desire or control fertility. For those who may become
pregnant, the desire to have children may not be there. We carried out this
study to look at the picture of the reproductive health needs of women living
with HIV/AIDS in our setting. In this cross-sectional non-analytic design that
lasted for three years, we employed both qualitative and quantitative methods
to collect data from them after receiving ethical clearance (N221/CM/2009) from
the National Ethics Committee. Consenting HIV infected women who were attending
the “HIV Day Care” clinics and those who delivered and were in the post partum
wards in four of our major hospitals in Yaounde were enrolled. Interviews were
individualized. We used both CSPro version 4.1 and Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) version 19.0 softwares for data analysis. Four hundred
and fifteen (415) women were enrolled; the mean age was 29 ± 7.8 years; the
most represented age group was 24 -29 years. They were single (36.14%), well
educated (5 out of 10 had attained university level of education), 61.20%
revealed that their partners knew their HIV status, 82.4% believed that
screening for cancer of the cervix was necessary for their status and 47.70%
would want to be screened for some or all STIs. About 36.86% had the desire to
have children, 57.1% of those who delivered did not plan to have
the pregnancies out of which 82% would have wanted a modern method of contraception
but did not have (82% unmet needs). Modern contraceptive use was associated with age and individual
characteristics such as level of education. It was 64.34% among women who had
secondary level of education and below as against 35.66% among those who had
high school level of education and above. Contraceptive use was also high among
women who were unmarried as against those who were married (89.64% vs 10.36%).
The desire to have children decreased as age increased (43.85% vs 18.79%) and
was lower among married women compared to those who were single (13.01% versus
49.64%). These women were found to have high unmet needs for modern
contraception and showed interest in STIs and cervical cancer screening.