Factors affecting the treatment of syphilis infection among pregnant and lying-in women in Zhejiang Province / 预防医学

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the current status of syphilis treatment and its influencing factors among pregnant and lying-in women in Zhejiang Province, so as to promote the standardized treatment for pregnant and lying-in women with syphilis.@*Methods @#The sociodemographic characteristics ( age, educational level, ethnicity, marital status, occupation ), fertility ( gravidity, parity, number of children, and adverse pregnancy history ), gestational week at the first antenatal care visit and syphilis treatment ( treatment or not, standardized treatment or not, and antibody titer ) were collected from the pregnant and lying-in women with syphilis infections delivered in Zhejiang Province in 2018, based on the Zhejiang Provincial Information Management System for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of AIDS, Syphilis and Hepatitis B. Factors affecting the treatment of syphilis infections were identified using a structural-equation model.@*Results@#A total of 2 061 pregnant and lying-in women with syphilis infections were included, with a median age of 29 years and a mean gestational week at the first antenatal care visit of ( 14.33±11.85 ) weeks, and there were 844 women ( 40.95% ) diagnosed in early pregnancy ( <13 weeks of gestational age ). There were 1 978 cases ( 95.97% ) receiving syphilis treatment, and 1 616 cases ( 78.41% ) received standardized treatment. The structural-equation modeling analysis showed that the gestational age at the first antenatal care visit and fertility had direct impacts on the treatment of syphilis infections among pregnant and lying-in women, with standardized path coefficients of -0.187 and -0.157 (both P<0.05 ), respectively, and the sociodemographic characteristics affected the treatment of syphilis through the mediating role of fertility, with a standardized path coefficient of 0.070 ( P<0.05 ).@*Conclusions@#The proportion of syphilis treatment is more than 95% among pregnant and lying-in women in Zhejiang Province, which achieves the required process criteria for validation of elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. Gestational week at the first antenatal care visit, fertility status, and sociodemographic characteristics are factors affecting the treatment syphilis infections during pregnancy.