Perception of HIV Positive Women Regarding Measures to Improve the Quality of Antenatal Care

Abstract

In the past decade, the Ministry of Health of Swaziland developed and implemented focused antenatal care package in line with the World Health Organisation guidelines. Yet official reports suggest that the implementation of the focused antenatal care did not translate into improvement of the quality of ANC provided to HIV positive pregnant women. The aim of the study was to explore and describe the perceptions of HIV-positive women regarding measures required to improve the quality of focused antenatal provided to HIV positive. This study used a qualitative descriptive, exploratory design. Eighteen individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 HIV positive pregnant women who attended at least one antenatal care visit at a public health facility. Seven subthemes emerged from the analysis of the collected data: enhance the provision of integrated care, capacity building, use of mix skilled professionals, empathy, enhance the content of health education, involvement of partners, and ensure the hospital-tocommunity continuum of care. Providing quality focused antenatal care to HIV positive women is a significant step in the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and the pregnancy related morbidity and mortality. Integrating HIV positive pregnant women’s perspectives into measures aimed at improving the quality of focused antenatal care has the potential to strengthen individualised care principle of focused antenatal care. These measures should be supported with additional resources and effective leadership.

Keywords: Focused Antenatal Care, HIV Positive Women, Quality Improvement Measures