Socio-Demographic Profiles of Naive HIV Pregnant Women and Retention to the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) Interventions in the East Region of Cameroon

Background: At enrolment into antenatal care, socio-demographic data of HIV infected pregnant women and lactating mothers are usually collected with little or no analysis done on them. This study was aimed to describe the socio-demographic profiles of naive to antiretroviral therapy (ART) HIV-infected pregnant women in the East region of Cameroon and to link this to retention in order to optimize the implementation of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) interventions. Methods: A descriptive prospective study that lasted from February 2018 until February 2019 in three catchment health facilities in the East region for the recruitment and follow-up of participants who were consented HIV-infected pregnant women naive to ART. Socio-demographic, treatment compliance and adherence data were obtained by healthcare providers who were trained using a standard questionnaire that was conceived, tested and adapted for the study. Data were analyzed using Graph Prism (Graph pad 6.0, San Diego, USA). The Fisher exact and Chi-squared tests were used to establish the associations and independence between different variables at statistical significance level of p < 0.05. Results: A total of seventy (70) women were enrolled with age range varying between 15 and 40 years with a mean age of 26.5 ± 6.2 years. Loss-to-follow-up (LTFU) was observed among 17 women (24.29%). The Muslim religion, education below secondary level and the profession of housewife were significantly associated with LTFU at p = 0.01, p < 0.0001 and p = 0.0053, respectively. For participants who were retained until study endpoint, having secondary level of education or above and a profession other than housewife had a significant association (p = 0.0063), as well as being a Christian. Conclusion: Loss to follow-up in PMTCT program was associated with Muslim religion, primary level of education and the housewife occupation.