Table 3 Summary table of facilitators of male PMTCT involvement

Health system facilitators

• Invitation letters from health service inviting men to PMTCT [20, 38, 41, 47, 49].

• Offering routine voluntary couple counselling [25, 37, 40, 42].

• Provision of counselling services during non-working hours [40, 47].

• Offering of counselling and testing for HIV at sites other than antenatal care [41, 47].

• Availability of health personnel to encourage testing and facilitate disclosure [19].

• Change from voluntary counselling and testing to routine counselling and testing [34].

• Offering of counselling and testing for HIV within antenatal settings [47].

• Differential targeting and offering of counselling and testing of HIV to men accompanying their wives to the delivery wards [23].

• Holding of open discussions on free prenatal HIV testing for partners [35].

• Differential counselling for HIV positive women [32].

• Community sensitization activities [20].

• Availability of anti-retroviral drugs in the health centre [20].

Relationship dynamics factors

• Monogamous marriage or cohabitation of partners [14;25;42].

• Discussion of PMTCT within the couple [14, 48].

• Sero-concordance for HIV [42].

Male individual facilitators

• Previous male testing for HIV [14, 44].

• Providing men with time to consider PMTCT recommendations [33, 37].

• Increased male knowledge concerning HIV and perceived benefits of PMTCT [19, 48].

Female individual factors

• Lack of financial dependence on the part of women [15].

• Positive attitudes of women towards disclosure of their test results [46].