Fertility Desire and Reproductive Health Education Needs of Women Living with HIV Receiving Care at Regional Hospital Limbe HIV Treatment Centre

Aims: Fertility desires among persons living with HIV (PLHIV) could have important HIV prevention and demographic implications particularly in high prevalence settings such as Cameroon. There is a paucity of data on fertility desires and associated factors among PLHIV in Cameroon. The aim of the study was to determine whether HIV positive women desire having children so as to improve on the sexual and reproductive health messages and services provided to them.

Study Design: This was a facility based cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Regional Hospital Limbe (RHL) HIV treatment centre between May and June 2014.

Methodology: Systematic sampling was used to select 250 women between the ages of 15–49 years as they consulted at the clinic. Participants were recruited and data collected using an interviewer administered questionnaire.

Results: Mean age was 32 years and 75.9% were sexually active. In this study, 51.4% were not married while 48.6% were married. Fertility desires was high (83.3%) and child bearing after HIV diagnosis was common (48%) with 71.2% of them not going in for preconception counseling. In multivariate analysis, older age (OR: 20.895, 95%CI: 5.3-83.5), not using condom (OR: 30.021, 95% CI: 3.4-262.6) and not being married (OR: 4.87, 95%CI: 1.4-17.6) were having a significantly higher chance of desiring children in future. Majority of WLWHIV (86.9%) indicated a need for RH education. Fertility desire (OR: 11.013, P=.001), previous RH discussions (OR: 7.49, P=.001) and knowledge of PMTCT (OR: 3.647, P=0.021) were the best predictors of RHE need.

Conclusion: A substantial number of WLWHIV attending RHL HIV treatment centre desire having children and there is unmet Reproductive Health Education needs for these women. There is need to sought new strategies to address reproductive health care services so as to satisfy reproductive health care needs of HIV positive woman in Cameroon.