Perception of High School Students towards Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing, Using Health Belief Model in Butajira, SNNPR
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Date
2006-08
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in January 2006, among
Butajira senior secondary school students. The objective of the study was to
assess the perception and attitude of the students towards voluntary counseling
and testing (VCT) services based on Health Belief Model.
A multi stage sampling method was used to fill 658 self-administered
questionnaires of which 638 were returned complete making the respondent rate
of 96.9%. Among the respondents, 415(65%) were males and 223(35%) were
females. The mean age of the students was 16.25± 2.09. Of both sex mix,
129(20.22%) of the respondents had sexual experience i.e. 16.92% of the males
and 3.3% of the females. The majority, 96.7% of them had heard about VCT
services from different sources but only 118(18.5%) of the students had
undergone VCT. Eighty two percent of the students were willing to undergo
VCT. A theoretical construct with the intention to willingness to under go VCT
was analyzed. Thus bi-variate regression analysis showed that willingness to
VCT was significantly associated with perceived susceptibility AOR=0.37(0.28,
0.89), perceived barrier AOR= 0.45 (0.23, 0.89), perceived benefit AOR=1.79
(1.44, 2.49)
Even if majority of the students had high level of knowledge, still they were
engaged in risky sexual behavior. About half of the students had low perception
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towards acquiring HIV. Therefore, Information, education and communication
programs should be established and emphasis should be put on reproductive
health in order to encourage the students to avoid unsafe sex. HIV preventive
messages like VCT should emphasis on personal susceptibility to HIV/ AIDS.
Self-efficacy of the students to use VCT should be strengthened and quantitative
study on perceived barriers and benefit of VCT should be conducted.
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Keywords
Perception of High School Students towards Voluntary