Evaluation of the effects of HIV infection on sexual and reproductive health knowledge and attitudes of women living with HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus)

Özge MIHCI, Evaluation of the effects of HIV infection on sexual and reproductive health knowledge and attitudes of women living with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Thesis, Ankara, 2019. HIV infection is a chronic disease that affects every aspect of the individual and social life. The number of people living with HIV is rapidly increasing thanks to treatments developed despite the slowdown of the epidemic. It is seen that female dominance in HIV epidemic has started to increase. By changing the behaviors of the society and the people, the discrimination and stigma of the patients can be reduced and the patients can have a healthy child, they can live a sexual life without fear of transmission, and if necessary, they can get counseling in the field of sexual health. A holistic study on the knowledge, approach and attitudes of women living with HIV on reproductive health and contraceptive methods has not been found in the literature. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of living with HIV on sexual attitude, family planning methodology and sexually transmitted disease information. Between May 01 and November 15, 2019, 43 HIV-positive women who accepted to participate in the cross- sectional study were recruited from Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology. A total of 43 women who admitted to the outpatient clinic of the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Hacettepe University, who did not have HIV infection, who were older than 18 years of age and who were not followed up due to infertility and sexually transmitted diseases were included. Five-part questionnaire form was applied by face to face interview technique. The questionnaire consisted of questions about sociodemographic characteristics and medical history of HIV-related and other diseases, sexually transmitted disease information form, Pregnancy Prevention Method Information Form, Beck Depression Scale, Hendrick Sexual Attitude Scale. The sociodemographic characteristics of the women living with HIV were similar to the control group (p> 0.05). As a result of our study, sexually transmitted disease information scores of female patients living with HIV were worse than the control group (p = 0.002), and there was no difference between the level of knowledge about family planning methods and their using status (p> 0.05). Total scores of sexual attitude scale of female patients living with HIV were higher than the control group (p = 0.02).