Factors Affecting Male Partners' Involvement in The Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (Pmtct) of Hiv/Aids In Asego Division, Homa Bay County, Kenya

Abstract HIY/AIDS pandemic has far-reaching social, economic, health and population effects. In addition to the harms directly inflicted on HIV -infected individuals and the households in which they live, AIDS has had indirect effects that are nevertheless real and substantial on communities and the whole of society. According to UNAIDS (2013), over 1700 children become infected with HIV worldwide each day with over 95% of them getting it through mother-to-child transmission and this called for the introduction of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) program as a global strategy to curb such escalating vertical transmissions. While both the partners (husband and wife) are responsible for a pregnancy, key decision making role in the families is often a male preserve and despite this fact, reviewed literature indicates little involvement of male partners' in PMTCT. This study is aimed at investigating the factors influencing male partners' involvement in PMTCT program with specific emphasis on male partners' knowledge and awareness on PMTCT, socio-cultural and programmatic factors and providing recommendations that are specific to the context of Asego division on how to increase male partners' involvement and consequently increasing PMTCT uptake and reducing maternal transmission of HIV/AIDS. This study was guided by the Health Belief Model adapted from Glanz, Rimer & Lewis' Related Behavior Theory and adopted cross-sectional descriptive design. Data was collected from 48 households among the 108 households from which children had completed the 18 months of follow-up at the Homa Bay District ANC in 2012 (HBDH Monthly Activity Report; Dee 2012). Purposive sampling was used to identify the 108 households from the patient register on the basis of completion of 18 months of follow-up; stratified sampling was employed to categorize households with children who turned HIV positive and those who turned HIV negative and simple random sampling finally conducted to identify proportionate representation from the two categories with data collected using structured questionnaires and direct observation methods. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis to capture the opinions and perceptions on male involvement while quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS 20 and results presented using frequency tables, pie charts and cross tabulations. The study findings revealed that male partners' involvement in PMTCT is largely influenced by strong fears of HIV positive results other than knowledge deficit ofPMTCT and cultural influence. There is therefore a great need to design culturally appropriate and gender sensitive programmatic interventions that can address the reasons why men are discouraged to accompany their wives to the ANCs.