Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Hiv/Aids Among the Urban Community of Adwa, Northern Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-09-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
AIDS is one of the greatest public health and social problems that challenging the human race in the globe. In the 2018 alone, about 37.9million people were living with the virus worldwide. Among which sub-Saharan Africa region, where the highest number with an estimated 70% of the global victims of HIV is found. Ethiopia is hardly affected by the HIV pandemic and 690,000 infected people had been living with HIV in 2018. The aim of this study was to investigate the current status of HIV infected individuals in the study area (Adwa town) and, exploring knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) among the study participants toward HIV. A cross-sectional study was carried out on 408 participants. Random sampling technique was used to select representative kebelles and study participants from in each kebelle. Well-structured questionnaires were used to collect KAP data towards HIV.SPSS version 24 was used for the analysis of quantitative data. We enrolled 408 respondents, of which 64.0% were males and 36% were females. Majority of the respondents had informed about HIV regardless of the sources. Most (96.6%) knew that AIDS is caused by HIV virus and over 95% of them also know the mode of transmission. The majority (86.1%) agreed that HIV is not a curable disease and only few (13.9%) had misconception towards the curability of the disease. With regard to the mode of prevention and control of HIV, 73.0, 96.1, 96.2 and 93.5% of the study participants agreed that abstained, condom use, limited sex, and no sex with prostitutes were the ways of protection against HIV respectively. In addition to these, respondents also mentioned that blood transfusion and injection from unknown sources were means of acquisition of HIV. Interestingly, the majority (90%) of the study participants’ attitude towards HIV and people living with HIV (PLHIV) were positive. Over seventy four percent of the study participants had history of sexual intercourse and most of them had first sex without the use of condom. From the total (408) participants of the study, slightly over half (54.5%) were tested for HIV, and rest were not yet tested. In conclusion, the overall knowledge and attitudes of the study participants were very high. However, very low practices towards HIV were observed among the study participants. Therefore, the study area requires a special attention, because there are high HIV risk practices among the community.
Description
Keywords
Adwa, AIDS, HIV, KAP, People Living With HIV (PLHIV)