HIV testing among pregnant wives of migrant men in a rural district of India: urgent call for scale up

A systematic review of barriers and facilitators to antenatal screening for HIV, syphilis or hepatitis B in Asia: Perspectives of pregnant women, their relatives and health care providers

BACKGROUND

Despite improvements, the prevalence of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B remains high in Asia. These sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can be transmitted from infected mothers to their children. Antenatal screening and treatment are effective interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), but coverage of antenatal screening remains low. Understanding factors influencing antenatal screening is essential to increase its uptake and design effective interventions. This systematic literature review aims to investigate barriers and facilitators to antenatal screening for HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B in Asia.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic review by searching Ovid (MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO), Scopus, Global Index Medicus and Web of Science for published articles between January 2000 and June 2023, and screening abstracts and full articles. Eligible studies include peer-reviewed journal articles of quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method studies that explored factors influencing the use of antenatal screening for HIV, syphilis or hepatitis B in Asia. We extracted key information including study characteristics, sample, aim, identified barriers and facilitators to screening. We conducted a narrative synthesis to summarise the findings and presented barriers and facilitators following Andersen's conceptual model.

RESULTS

The literature search revealed 23 articles suitable for inclusion, 19 used quantitative methods, 3 qualitative and one mixed method. We found only three studies on syphilis screening and one on hepatitis B. The analysis demonstrates that antenatal screening for HIV in Asia is influenced by many barriers and facilitators including (1) predisposing characteristics of pregnant women (age, education level, knowledge) (2) enabling factors (wealth, place of residence, husband support, health facilities characteristics, health workers support and training) (3) need factors of pregnant women (risk perception, perceived benefits of screening).

CONCLUSION

Knowledge of identified barriers to antenatal screening may support implementation of appropriate interventions to prevent MTCT and help countries achieve Sustainable Development Goals' targets for HIV and STIs.

Factors affecting antenatal screening for HIV in Nepal: results from Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys 2016 and 2022

OBJECTIVES

Antenatal screening for HIV remains low in Nepal. Identifying factors associated with the uptake of antenatal screening is essential to increase uptake and prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT). This study investigated the effects of individual-level and district-level characteristics on the utilisation of antenatal screening for HIV in Nepal and how these effects changed between 2016 and 2022.

DESIGN

We used publicly available cross-sectional data from 2016 to 2022 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys.

SETTING

Stratified, multistage, random sampling was used to collect nationally representative data.

PARTICIPANTS

1978 and 2007 women aged 15-49 years who gave birth in the 2 years preceding the surveys.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

We used multilevel models to estimate associations between antenatal screening and potential factors influencing it in 2016 and 2022. We used districts as a random effect and looked at the intraclass correlation coefficients to disentangle the geographical effects. To distinguish barriers to HIV screening from barriers to accessing antenatal care (ANC) services, we performed similar analyses with whether the woman attended at least one ANC visit as the dependent variable.

RESULTS

Factors associated with antenatal screening have not changed significantly between 2016 and 2022. Higher uptake of HIV screening was found among women with higher education, the pregnancy being desired later and women who had four or more ANC visits. Being from a poorer family and having low knowledge of MTCT and the medicines to prevent transmission were associated with lower uptake. From the supply side, no factors had a significant effect on antenatal screening. Factors associated with antenatal screening and those associated with any ANC were different. Our results also showed a partial importance of geographical factors on screening uptake.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results supported that antenatal screening could be improved by enhancing access to information and improving the availability of free screening.

Feasibility of supervised self-testing using an oral fluid-based HIV rapid testing method: a cross-sectional, mixed method study among pregnant women in rural India

INTRODUCTION

HIV self-testing can increase coverage of essential HIV services. This study aimed to establish the acceptability, concordance and feasibility of supervised HIV self-testing among pregnant women in rural India.

METHODS

A cross-sectional, mixed methods study was conducted among 202 consenting pregnant women in a rural Indian hospital between August 2014 and January 2015. Participants were provided with instructions on how to self-test using OraQuick(®) HIV antibody test, and subsequently asked to self-test under supervision of a community health worker. Test results were confirmed at a government-run integrated counselling and testing centre. A questionnaire was used to obtain information on patient demographics and the ease, acceptability and difficulties of self-testing. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sub-sample of 35 participants to understand their experiences.

RESULTS

In total, 202 participants performed the non-invasive, oral fluid-based, rapid test under supervision for HIV screening. Acceptance rate was 100%. Motivators for self-testing included: ease of testing (43.4%), quick results (27.3%) and non-invasive procedure (23.2%). Sensitivity and specificity were 100% for 201 tests, and one test was invalid. Concordance of test result interpretation between community health workers and participants was 98.5% with a Cohen's Kappa (k) value of k=0.566 with p<0.001 for inter-rater agreement. Although 92.6% participants reported that the instructions for the test were easy to understand, 18.7% required the assistance of a supervisor to self-test. Major themes that emerged from the qualitative interviews indicated the importance of the following factors in influencing acceptability of self-testing: clarity and accessibility of test instructions; time-efficiency and convenience of testing; non-invasiveness of the test; and fear of incorrect results. Overall, 96.5% of the participants recommended that the OraQuick(®) test kits should become publicly available.

CONCLUSIONS

Self-testing for HIV status using an oral fluid-based rapid test under the supervision of a community health worker was acceptable and feasible among pregnant women in rural India. Participants were supportive of making self-testing publicly available. Policy guidelines and implementation research are required to advance HIV self-testing for larger populations at scale.