Fertility Desires And Intentions Of HIV Positive Men And Women Aged 15-49 Attending HIV Care At Selected Health Facilities In Aswa Gulu District.

Abstract

Studies from different contexts worldwide indicate fertility desires of people living with HIV/AIDS have become a public health challenge, this is for both developed / rich countries like USA and non-developed or limited resource setting countries like in Sub Sahara Africa both indicate HIV infected men and women have fertility desires and intentions, yet HIV is known to be the major cause of death in women of reproductive age in the world and there is limited evidence pertaining the fertility desire of HIV positive women receiving HIV care in Uganda. This has shown controversial results with regard to whether childbearing desire and intention are changed after the expansion of ART and PMTCT services, however the intake of EMTCT services in the remote setting like Aswa is seem to be hard. This was justified by studies in 2011 in several HIV clinics across Northern Uganda indicates that only 24% of male respondents and 19% of female respondents said they wanted more Children and some Scanty information indicates that those desires to stop child bearing among PLHIV was 6.25 times greater among HIV infected men and women compared to HIV negative. This calls for a lot of interventions to put in place otherwise HIV positive men and women will die with pain of not being able to produce a child or fear of producing HIV infected children. The Objective was to determine factors affecting fertility desires and intention of HIV positive men and women living in Aswa Gulu District and the implications of HIV transmission in regard to MTCT of HIV and public Health Practices. And to address three research questions: What are the individual factors affecting fertility desires and intentions of HIV positive men and women of Aswa Health sub district? What are the partner factors affecting fertility desires of HIV positive men and women in selected health facilities in Aswa Health sub district? What is the level of integration of family planning services with HIV programs at selected health facilities in Aswa Health sub district? This study contributes to the understanding of the ongoing changes in fertility desire among PLHIV in Uganda and other developing countries that realized significant improvement in the life expectancy of HIV/AIDS patients