Spatial pattern and determinants of sufficient knowledge of mother to child transmission of HIV and its prevention among Nigerian women

Abstract

The lack of sufficient knowledge of mother to child transmission (MTCT) of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among pregnant women is considered a major contributor to new pediatric HIV infections globally, and increasing HIV related infant mortality especially in developing countries. Nigeria has the highest number of new HIV infections among children in the world. This study was designed to examine the spatial pattern and determinants of acquisition of sufficient knowledge of MTCT and prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) in Nigeria. The data used in the study were extracted from the 2018 Nigeria Democratic Health Survey. The spatial modeling was through a Bayesian approach with appropriate prior distributions assigned to the different parameters of the model and inference was through the integrated nested Laplace approximation technique (INLA). Results show considerable spatial variability in the acquisition of sufficient knowledge of MTCT and its prevention with women in the southwestern and southeastern part of the country having higher likelihood. The nonlinear effects findings show that acquisition of sufficient knowledge of MTCT and PMTCT increased with age of women and peaked at around age 35yearswhere it thereafter dropped drastically among the older women. Furthermore, sufficient knowledge of MTCT and PMTCT was found to be driven by ethnicity, respondents’ education and wealth status.