First eleven leaves not numbered / The purpose of this study was to identify, explore and describe the potential contributing
factors of the upsurge of HIV among children aged three to eighteen months in the
Mangaung Metropolitan area of the Free State Province in South Africa.
The study was conducted at five primary healthcare facilities and one hospital in the
Mangaung metropolitan municipality of the Free State Province with sixty randomly
selected mothers of children testing HIV-positive for the first time between the ages of
three and eighteen months.
The convergent mixed-methods research design was opted for, according to which both
qualitative and quantitative data were collected at the same health facilities selected by
means of cluster sampling. The review of medical records, unstructured interviews, and
structured questionnaires were used for qualitative and quantitative data collection, while
random cluster sampling was used for participant selection. Thematic data analysis was
applied for the interpretation of recurrent patterns of qualitative and quantitative data.
The study results revealed that mothers were well-informed about the prevention of
mother-to-child-transmission. The main factors that contributed to more children testing
HIV positive after the routine tests were conducted at ten weeks included non-adherence
factors to PMTCT prescripts mainly by mothers, such as: babies were not brought to the
clinics for testing and immunisations at ten weeks, and that mothers acquired HIV
infection during the breastfeeding period. Some other potential contributing factors were
late antenatal booking which lead to the delay in initiation of antiretroviral treatment, nonadherence
to antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy, and mixed feeding. The themes
that emerged from the qualitative data were psychological factors, emotional factors,
socioeconomic factors, missed opportunities, risky behaviour, as well as women
disempowerment; while some mothers were left with unanswered questions. The results of the qualitative part complemented the quantitative findings as they uncovered the
factors that led to the deviation from the PMTCT prescripts by the mothers.
The study’s recommendations include PMTCT psychological assessment and
counselling; partner and community involvement; women empowerment; and that couple
testing at antenatal and postnatal clinics should be a national policy subjected to
protracted monitoring and evaluation processes. / Health Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/25327 |
| Date | 07 1900 |
| Creators | Phakisi, Selloane |
| Contributors | Makhubela-Nkondo, Olga Naome |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (viii, 128 leaves) : illustrations, color maps, graphs, application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds