Contraceptive practice among HIV positive women attending anti-retroviral clinic at the university of port Harcourt teaching hospital, port Harcourt, southern Nigeria

Background: As the global efforts to curb the human immuno deficiency virus (HIV) pandemic continues, one key intervention is the promotion of effective family planning options for HIV positive women in the reproductive age group.Objectives: To evaluate the level of awareness and utilisation of contraceptives among HIV positive women attending anti-retroviral (ARV) clinic in Port Harcourt, South- South Nigeria and also determine the pattern of contraceptive use before and after sero-conversion.Design: Descriptive cross-sectional Hospital based studySetting: Anti-retroviral (ARV) clinic, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, (UPTH), Port Harcourt, Nigeria.Subjects: One hundred and seventy HIV positive women in the reproductive age on highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART)Results: The mean age of the respondents was 34.34 ± 0.66 years with a range of22-55years and parity range of 0-6 with a median parity of 2. Although majority (76%) of respondents were aware of contraceptives, only 49 (28.82%) were using contraception before diagnosis of HIV infection, but the uptake increased to almost 100% after knowledge of sero-conversion, with majority using male condom. Up to 55 (32.4%) respondents were sero-concodant with sexual partners, 46 (27.1%) sero-discodant while 69(40.6%) were not aware of their partners sero-status.Conclusion: There is extremely high knowledge and uptake of family planning after diagnosis of sero-conversion among HIV positive women attending the ARV clinic in Port Harcourt with the male condom as the most preferred method. This may have contributed to the reportedly overall slowly declining HIV prevalence