Abstract:
Depression is the most common mental health disorder among HIV-positive
pregnant mothers, which increases mortality, poor quality of life; it also increases the burden
of disease. Depression hurts birth outcomes and maternal health.
Objective: To assess depression and its associated factors among HIV-positive pregnant
women attending antenatal care at Northwest Amhara referral hospitals, 2021.
Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 291 HIVpositive pregnant mothers from March 15, 2021 to April 30, 2021 at Northwest Amhara
referral hospitals. Census was applied to reach the study participants. An intervieweradministered questionnaire was used for data collection. A binary logistic regression was
conducted to see the relationship between dependent variables and independent. Those
variables having a p-value of ≤0.05 were found to be statistically associated with the
response.
Results: Depression among HIV-positive pregnant women was found to be 28.7% [95% CI
(24.8–33.40)] with a response rate of 96.04. Age ≥30 years [AOR = 1.32, 95% CI (1.24–
3.35)], urban residency [AOR = 1.76, 95% CI (1.57–4.61)], having first pregnancy <18 years
[AOR = 3.82, 95% CI (1.54–17.34)], known HIV serostatus during pregnancy [AOR = 1.29,
95% CI (1.08–2.47)], and COVID-19-related knowledge [AOR = 0.32, 95% CI (0.12–1.12)
were significantly associated with depression.
Conclusions and Recommendations: Nearly one-third of the pregnant women attending
antenatal care were depressed. The age of the mother, residence, known HIV serostatus
during pregnancy, age in the first pregnancy, and COVID-19-related knowledge were
significantly associated with depression, and strengthening the existing care provided was
the recalled interventions to combat antenatal depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: COVID-19, depression, prevalence, HIV positive mothers, pregnancy, referral
hospitals, Ethiopia
