Assessment of Media Use Pattern in HIV/AIDS Prevention Among Youths in Bahirdar Town
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Date
2006-04
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Introduction: Every six seconds, someone around the world is infected with HIV. Young
people account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide; more than 6000 contract the
virus every day. Provision of accurate and timely HIV/AIDS information to modify behavior
by using modern media and interpersonal communication remains a top mitigative public
health priority.
Objective: The main aim of this study is to assess the media use pattern, media preference
and media exposure influence on KAP in HIV/AIDS prevention among youths in Bahirdar
Methods: Cross-sectional community based quantitative and qualitative study designs were
used. Adequately tailored balances of closed and open-ended questionnaires were used to
interview a sample size of 730 youths (15-24 years) of Bahirdar town in January2006. FGD
for purposively selected members of Anti AIDS clubs, youth associations, religious people,
and local artists were conducted.
Results and discussions: Among 14 potential media sources radio has been found out the
single most important information source medium reported by respondents. When the
percentage of listeners per the daily-broadcast period was seen, the evening hours have the
highest numbers of listeners of radio (50.4%) among the respondents followed by the mid day
or noon hours (17.8%). Six hundred twenty nine (86.2%) were known to have some kind of
access to radio sets while only 388(53.2%) of them had television sets. Youths exposed to
radio messages were more than three or more times more likely to be knowledgeable on
HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention methods than those not exposed to radio before
adjusting and after adjusting for other socio-demographic factors .
Conclusion and recommendations: From this study findings, it can be noted that even
though different media (radio, television, prints, interpersonal) and common sources for
HIV/AIDS messages were available, most youths may not use them frequently, and on usual
broadcast times. These study findings would give a baseline data for IEC/BCC programme
planners and implementers, specifically among 15 to 24 year youths in the study area.
Therefore it is suggested that media message dissemination would be designed based on the
media preferences of youths’ inline with favorite media programmes.
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Key words: media use pattern, media preference, media exposure, youth, HIV/AIDS
Description
Keywords
media use pattern, media preference, media exposure, youth, HIV/AIDS