Publication:

Missed opportunities for antenatal syphilis testing and its associated factors among mothers delivered at fort portal regional referral hospital, Uganda: a cross-sectional study

Background The global effort to eradicate mother to child transmission (MTCT) of syphilis concentrated on attaining antenatal syphilis screening and treatment; nevertheless, there is lack of data about the accessibility of prenatal screening and treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This study aimed at determining the proportion of missed opportunities for antenatal syphilis testing and associated factors among mothers in rural western Uganda delivered at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital (FRRH).

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted from postnatal ward of FRRH from April to July 2022.  Consecutive sampling of 381 participants was done. A structured pretested questionnaire was used to obtain Sociodemographic details and other factors required for analysis. Using SPSS version 22.0, descriptive statistical analysis was done and binary logistic regression was computed to determine factors associated with missed opportunities for antenatal syphilis testing with a significance level of 5% and 95% confidence interval.

Results The proportion of missed opportunities for syphilis testing was 124 (32.5%). lack of syphilis test counseling (aOR= 4.3 [2.009-9.438], lack of knowledge of syphilis MTCT (aOR= 3.1 [1.120-8.903], lack of transport (aOR= 10.7 [3.116-36.810] and fear of testing (aOR= 4.3 [1.075-17.484] were found to be independently associated factors after multivariate analysis.

Conclusions Our study findings demonstrated the need of sensitization of healthcare providers including antenatal care (ANC) staff about the role of identifying mothers who missed antenatal syphilis testing while in postnatal ward for education, counselling and testing.