Barriers to involvement of men in ANC and VCT in Khayelitsha, South Africa

Abstract

We used qualitative methods to assess pregnant women and men's attitudes, feelings, beliefs, experiences and reactions to male partners’ involvement in antenatal clinic (ANC) in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa. The aims of these studies were to determine barriers to male partners’ attendance of ANC with their pregnant female partners and to identify possible strategies to overcome these barriers. Findings from the qualitative studies demonstrated that pregnant women were keen to invite their male sexual partners and that men would attend if invited. The main barrier to male participation was lack of awareness and the healthcare facility environment. The findings of these studies emphasized the need to increase awareness among men in Khayelitsha of the need for male attendance of ANC and the need to address the barriers to male attendance of ANC. It was clear that community sensitization programmes coupled with improvement of the health facility environment to be receptive to men are essential for increasing male attendance of ANC.

Stakeholders’ perceptions on factors influencing male involvement in prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV services in Blantyre, Malawi

“…Extending invites to men as expressed in other studies is also a way of promoting MI [20,23,53]. A review of literature concluded that MI requires a multimethod approach such as invitation letter accompanied by community education and mass media campaigns [78].…”

Official invitation letters to promote male partner attendance and couple voluntary HIV counselling and testing in antenatal care: an implementation study in Mbeya Region, Tanzania

“…Social norms can prevent women from asking their partners to attend ANC or for men to concede to attending [ 19 ]. ANC has been considered an arena for women, with predominately female staff, and reports of hostile reactions towards male partners if they attend [ 20 ]. Clinic opening hours and long waiting time conflict with male partner work commitments and, for some, the pressure to earn an income is greater than that of attending ANC [ 20 , 21 ].…”

“…ANC has been considered an arena for women, with predominately female staff, and reports of hostile reactions towards male partners if they attend [ 20 ]. Clinic opening hours and long waiting time conflict with male partner work commitments and, for some, the pressure to earn an income is greater than that of attending ANC [ 20 , 21 ]. Formative research from different sub-Saharan African countries has recommended interventions to increase male partner attendance or involvement, such as opening clinics at evenings or weekends, peer-to-peer ANC/PMTCT education led by men, or home based CVCT during pregnancy [ 14 , 22 , 23 ].…”

“…Official written letters of invitation requesting male partner attendance ANC has been reported by both men and women as a good way to encourage male participation. Invitations are easy and cheap to implement and can overcome social normative barriers by removing the need for women to directly ask their partners to attend ANC, and the official nature of the invite invokes a certain authority which is reported to be respected by male partners [ 20 , 21 - 24 , 25 ]. However, further research is still needed to evaluate the effectiveness of written invitations in different settings [ 26 ].…”

Experiences, views and needs of first-time fathers in pregnancy-related care: a qualitative study in south-East Nigeria

“…All willing participants were asked to sign the consent form before interviews commenced. An interview guide created from similar studies served as a guide for the researcher during the interview process [4,59]. After the opening question, the interview guide was used flexibly.…”