Beliefs and practices of young women on utilization of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV services in Malawi.docVIP

Vol.5, No.7, 1172-1179 (2013) Health /10.4236/health.2013.57158 Beliefs and practices of young women on utilization of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV services in Malawi Sadandaula Rose Muheriwa , Angela Chimwaza , Alfred O. Maluwa , 1* 2 1 1 1 Betty Mkwinda Nyasulu , Mercy Pindani 1 2 Kamuzu College of Nursing, Lilongwe Campus, Lilongwe, Malawi; Corresponding Author: rmuheriwa@kcn.unima.mw * Kamuzu College of Nursing, Blantyre Campus, Blantyre, Malawi Received 18 April 2013; revised 19 May 2013; accepted 27 June 2013 Copyright ? 2013 Sadandaula Rose Muheriwa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribu- tion License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT fore, there is a need to mobilize communities on PMTCT of HIV. Education programmes in HIV should emphasize behavior change interven- tions and should focus on both men and women and significant others. There is also need to in- tensify monitoring and evaluation of health workers’ activities to ensure that beliefs trans- late into positive behavior. This study explored beliefs and actual practices of young women on utilization of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV services in Balaka district of Southern Malawi. The study design was cross sectional which util- ized qualitative data collection and analysis methods. In-depth interviews were conducted on 12 young mothers of 15 to 24 years old. The respondents were drawn from 6 health centres in the district during their visits to either the under-five clinic, HIV and AIDS support groups or HIV follow up clinics. Data were analyzed us- ing thematic analysis approach. Overall the re- spondents had positive belie