Fernando Braz Pauli, Valdir Spada Júnior, Renan William Mesquita, Guilherme Welter Wendt, Paulo Cezar Nunes Fortes, Harapan Harapan, Lirane Elize Defante Ferreto
Approximately 10–12 million new syphilis infections occur annually worldwide, including in pregnant women. This study identified the factors associated with syphilis in pregnant women admitted to a tertiary maternity ward in the State of Paraná, Brazil. This is an ambispective, paired case-control study (1:2 ratio) conducted from September 2020 to October 2021. Pregnant patients (n = 93) admitted to the maternity ward, who were tested with the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) and rapid reagent test, were compared with 186 controls, matched by age and period of hospital admission. Sociodemographic, behavioral, prenatal, and maternity healthcare information was collected through interviews. The data were analyzed using binary logistic regression. Results showed that race/skin color other than white (OR: 2.12; 95%CI: 1.19–3.80; p < 0.001), having more than one sexual partner (OR: 3.69; 95%CI: 1.70–8.00; p = 0.001), being a former smoker (OR: 2.07; 95%CI: 1.07–4.01; p = 0.030) and a current smoker (OR: 4.31; 95%CI: 1.55–11.98; p = 0.005), as well as having a history of sexually transmitted infections (OR: 10.87; 95%CI: 4.04–29.27; p < 0.0.01) were risk factors for gestational syphilis. In summary, the study indicated that sociodemographic, behavioral, and healthcare-related variables were associated with gestational syphilis. Therefore, practitioners could benefit from incorporating these factors to deliver evidence-based treatment for gestational syphilis. © 2024 Braz Pauli et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Postgraduate Program in Applied Health Sciences, Western Paraná State University (UNIOESTE), Francisco Beltrão, Brazil; Health Sciences Center, Western Paraná State University (UNIOESTE), Francisco Beltrão, Brazil; Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
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