Table 1.
Semi-Structured Patient Interview Guide for HIV-infected Women
| Primary Question | Probe |
|---|---|
| Can you share with us the things that you think about having a child? | Are there any concerns you have about having a child? |
| Has the availability of HIV medications (ARVs) affected your decision to have children? If so, how? | Does having treatment available make you feel more or less that you would like to have children? |
| What can HIV+ women do to try to make sure that they do not transmit HIV to their unborn child? | |
| If you are in a relationship, do you and your partner know one another's HIV status? | |
| Does knowing each other's HIV status change your decision to have children? | Why or why not? |
| Is there is anything you can do to try and lower the risk of infecting or re-infecting your partner while you try to get pregnant? | |
| Where would you go to get information about how to safely become pregnant? | Would you go to a family member, friend, health care provider/clinic or hospital, other? |
| Have you talked with your partner about having a child? | Who raised the issue of having children (you or your partner, or another family member)? |
| What would you expect your partner to say and do when you talk about having children with him? | |
| Have you or would you consider discussing your desire to have children with a health care provider (a doctor/nurse/clinical officer/counselor)? | Why or why not? |
| Has, or would, your partner go with you to see a health care provider to discuss having a child? | Why or why not? |
| What, if anything, has your health care provider told you about being HIV+ and having children? | |
| How did or how would you expect a health care provider to react when you ask him or her about your desire to have children? | |
| What kind of help would you want your health care provider to give you or your partner when you are trying to get pregnant and have a child? | |
| Have you ever heard people say that your healthcare provider can advise you on ways to get pregnant with reduced risk of HIV transmission to your partner? | Do you know of any ways to do this? |
| For example, do you know how to check the time when a woman is most likely to get pregnant (‘ovulation’) and then to have sex without a condom only during the 2 or 3 days around this time? This would still involve some risk of transmitting HIV infection, but is less risky than having sex without a condom all the time. | If you have heard about this before, where did you hear about this and what do you think about this? If you have never heard about this, do you think you and your partner would do this? If no, what are the reasons why not? |
| Would your partner come with you to the clinic to talk to a health care provider about this safer way of becoming pregnant? | If no, what might help make your partner(s) more interested to learn and hear about these safer ways to have a child and decrease the transmission of HIV? |
| Are there any other comments, concerns or ideas that you can think of that we did not talk about today that we should think about in trying to help women who are living with HIV? | Would your partner come with you to the clinic to talk to a health care provider about this safer way of becoming pregnant? |
| Would you like to hear more about ways to become pregnant with less risk of transmitting HIV to your partner(s)? |