Mexican women's reasons for accepting or declining HIV antibody testing in pregnancy

Objective: to determine pregnant women's reasons for accepting or declining the HIV test in Leon, Mexico. Design: a cross-sectional study using a face-to-face questionnaire. Setting: the antenatal clinic at a tertiary-care referral hospital in Leon, Mexico. Participants: 1184 pregnant women. Data collection: reasons for accepting or declining the HIV antibodies test, socio-economic characteristics and risk factors for HIV were recorded. Blood samples were obtained from women who accepted to be tested, and positive serologies to HIV on duplicate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay testing were confirmed by Western Blot assay. Findings: 1009 (85.2%) women accepted the HIV antibodies test. The main reason for accepting it was that women felt the test could be beneficial to their babies (45.1%). The two main reasons for rejecting the HIV antibodies test were that women felt the test was unnecessary because their husbands did not have sexual intercourse with other women (32.6%), and because they did not have permission from their husbands for accepting the test (23.5%). None of the women tested positive for HIV antibodies (0 per 1009). Key conclusions: The reasons for accepting the HIV test were similar to those reported in developed countries. One important reason for declining the test was that women did not have their husband's permission. Implications for practice: the acceptance rate for HIV testing in pregnant women could be improved by counselling men on the value of their wives being tested in pregnancy. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.