What is the relationship between increased access to HAART, relationship status and fertility decisions amongst HIV‐positive women? A literature review and meta‐analysis

Abigail Burgess and Edward Purssell

Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2017, vol. 26, issue 23-24, 3800-3810

Abstract: Aims and objectives To investigate the relationship between fertility decisions, to have already had a child or to desire to have one in the future, and the prognostic factors; access to antiretrovirals, the time since these became widely available (year of the study); and relationship status. Background There have been significant advances in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus with the advent of antiretroviral therapy which has been used to successfully reduce the rate of mother to child transmission; leading researchers to hypothesise that human immunodeficiency virus‐positive women may desire to have children more so now than in the past. However, this topic is often not discussed in healthcare consultations. Design & Methods A systematic search was conducted on Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature and Medline, using the key terms ‘fertility decisions’ and ‘human immunodeficiency virus positive’. A meta‐analysis of proportions and a meta‐regression were conducted using a random‐effects model and a logit transformation to normalise the data. Heterogeneity was assessed using Q, I2 and R2 values, and p‐values were produced for each regressed variable. Results There was no statistically significant relationship between a desire to have children in the future and any of the prognostic variables. However, there were statistically significant relationships between already having had at least one child; being on antiretroviral therapy; wanting a child in the future; and being in a cohabiting partnership or marriage. Conclusion There are no reliable prognostic variables which can be used to predict fertility intentions in human immunodeficiency virus‐positive women. There is, however, a significant proportion of women who wish to have children or who have already had children and are in need of reproductive counselling from their healthcare providers. Relevance to clinical practice A greater knowledge of factors which may influence reproductive decisions amongst human immunodeficiency virus‐positive position will allow healthcare professionals to individualise the care they provide.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.13731

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jocnur:v:26:y:2017:i:23-24:p:3800-3810

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Clinical Nursing from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().