Objectives: To investigate the knowledge of the risk of HIV vertical transmission as well as the feeling about the new therapy in reducing that rate.
Methods: We included 152 HIV-infected women. A self reported questionnaire was administered from September to December 2000.
Results: About the risk rate of transmitting HIV to their baby, 21 (13.8%) women indicated 100%; 67 (44.1%) 50-80%; 35 (23%) 10-50% and only 22 women (14.5%) answered the correct value of less than 5%. Regarding the effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy, 82 women (53.9%) considered therapy effective in reducing vertical HIV transmission, while 63 women (41.4%) considered therapy powerless in preventing mother to child HIV transmission. Any statistically significant difference in sociodemographic, clinical, viroimmunological characteristics and antiretroviral therapy emerged between the groups.
Conclusions: Our data highlight the importance of providing appropriate counselling about perinatal HIV transmission to all childbearing age HIV infected women.