Awareness, Attitudes and Uptake of HIV Counselling and Testing Among Pregnant Women in The Teaching Hospitals in Lagos State, Nigeria

HIV Counselling and testing is a key factor in prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission. Awareness of HIV can be brought about through HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) which is considered as one of the various strategies to curb the increase in spread of HIV infection. The study assessed the awareness and attitudes towards HIV Counselling and Testing among pregnant women attending antenatal care clinic in teaching hospitals in Lagos State. A descriptive design was used. The total population consisted of pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and Lagos State Teaching University (LASU). The sample size of 284 was drawn from the total population using Cochran's formula. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents. The items in the questionnaire were presented to experts for review, correction and appraisal after which necessary corrections were made. Reliability was done using internal consistency method where the reliability coefficient generated for the pilot study generally was 0.828. The data for this study were gathered through primary source. The descriptive statistics was employed to answer the developed research questions for this study. The findings of the study revealed that most of the pregnant women had high level of awareness of HCT as 28 respondents representing 10.7 percent had low level of awareness of HCT, 69 respondents representing 26.4 percent had moderate level of awareness of HCT while 164 respondents representing 62.8 percent had high level of awareness of HCT. Also, most of the pregnant women had negative attitude towards HCT. In addition, most of the pregnant women had moderate level of uptake of HCT. It was recommended among others that the level of discrimination and stigmatization must be reduced by making laws that stand against discrimination and stigmatization. Keywords: Awareness, HIV Counselling and testing, attitudes, uptake, pregnant women,This article has been published at www.easij.com, Issue: 5, Vol.#3, May 2021