Objective: Our goal was to determine types of inpatient admissions among human immunodeficiency virus-infected women both before and after the human immunodeficiency virus diagnosis, so that we might outline opportunities for intervention.
Study design: A total of 292 human immunodeficiency virus-infected women were interviewed about the reproductive history and prior hospitalizations. A reproductive health hospitalization was defined as either an obstetric admission or a gynecologic admission. Other admissions were categorized as either human immunodeficiency virus related, possibly human immunodeficiency virus related, or not human immunodeficiency virus related. Assignments were made independently by two human immunodeficiency virus specialists. If there was a conflict, a third reviewer was used.
Results: In the 10 years before study entry 44.4% of women had at least one obstetric admission, 30.4% had at least one gynecologic admission, 3.1% had at least one human immunodeficiency virus-related admission, 18.1% had at least one admission that was possibly human immunodeficiency virus related, and 13.3% had at least one admission that was not human immunodeficiency virus related. Overall, 226 (77%) women had been admitted to the hospital; of these, 201 (69%) had been admitted for reproductive health reasons. Similar patterns were seen in the year before diagnosis and the time after diagnosis. Reproductive health admissions were more common among women who were younger, who used drugs, and who had higher CD4+ cell counts.
Conclusion: Women with human immunodeficiency virus infection are often admitted to hospitals for reproductive health reasons before and after the human immunodeficiency virus status is known. Clinicians providing reproductive health care must be actively engaged in efforts to reduce the heterosexual and perinatal transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, to identify human immunodeficiency virus-infected women early in the course of the disease, and to provide ongoing care to human immunodeficiency virus-infected women.