Knowledge gap about HIV/AIDs and stigma associated beliefs in an urban Community in Southwest Nigeria: Implication for social work
Keywords:
Community, perception, HIV/AIDS, people living with HIV/AIDSAbstract
Objectives: In Nigeria, over the years, community beliefs regarding HIV strongly influence stigma and discrimination experienced by People Living with HIV (PLHIV). Perception about its transmission has led to loss of income/livelihood, loss of marriage & childbearing options, poor care within the health sector, withdrawal of care-giving in the home, loss of hope & feelings of worthlessness as well as loss of reputation in the society. This study assessed community awareness and perception about HIV/AIDS in Osogbo Local Government, Osun State.
Materials and Methods: It is a cross sectional descriptive survey. A total of 449 respondents were selected using multi stage sampling technique.
Result: A little less than half i.e 208 (46.3%) believed that HIV can be transmitted through kissing, and 114 (25.4%) through hugging. One hundred and eleven (24.7%) believed that it is an act of God's punishment. Some respondents, 140(31.2%) believed that infected individuals should not get married, 67 (14.9%) will not keep friendship with infected individuals, 76 (16.9%) will not employ infected individual while 333(74.2%) believed infected individuals should be secluded from the society. A little less than half i.e 209 (46.5%) are yet to do HIV test. A significant association was found between occupation, educational status and the perception about PLHIV (p=0.000)
Conclusion: There is high level of awareness about HIV among studied respondents. This pattern was however marred with misconceptions together with discriminating and stigmatizing tendencies, which could affect response to HIV scourge prevention . Therefore, continuous health education through health talks and mass media exposure will be helpful to improve misconception about HIV transmission and treatment.
References
approach is required. There was significant association between education and perception towards PLWHAs as reported in this study. The logistic regression also suggested more friendly and human approach to the issue of social life of PLWHAs by the educated and professional group when compared to the uneducated and non professionals. This suggests that these group of people are less likely to discriminate against PLWAs. In a similar study, respondents with less than secondary school education had a discriminatory attitude toward HIV positive people.This indicates that education is important in the society in order to have the right perspective to life and issues in the society.
CONCLUSION
The level of awareness about HIV is high among studied respondents. This pattern was however marred with misconceptions together with discriminating and stigmatizing tendencies, which could affect response to HIV scourge prevention and control. Since awareness is key to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, there is an urgent need to increase the level of awareness about HIV/ AIDS, especially among the low socio economic and low educational status within the community using all methods of mass media and intensive information, education and
communication (IEC) activities by use of local folk media.
Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the efforts of medical students who helped in data collection.
References
Holmberg SD. The estimated prevalence and incidence of HIV in 96 large US metropolitan areas. Am J Public Health. May 1996; 86(5):
- 654.
Philipson TJ, Posner RA. Private Choices and Public Health. The AIDS Epidemic in an
Economic perspective. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; 1993,
1038/35073639. 3.
Piot P, Bartos M, Ghys PD. The Global impact to HIV / AIDS, Nature; 2001; 410, 968-973.
Ban Ki-moon op-ed. The stigma factor accessed
f r o m w w w . w a s h i n g t o n t i m e
<http://www.washingtontime/>.com / news/2008 accessed on 22nd of March, 2012.
Ming KE. Bibliography of Primary care Research in Malaysia. AIDS Care 2006, 18(8); 931-933.
Bond V, chase E, Aggleton P. HIV/AIDS and stigma and mother to child transmission in Zambia. Evaluation & program planning 2002, 25 (4):347-356.
Obermeyer C., Obsorn M. The utilization of testing and counselling of HIV: a review for social and behavioural evidence. American journal of Public Health. 2002; 92(8):1331-7. Link BG, Phelan JC. Conceptualizing stigma. Annual review of sociology. 2001;27: 363 - 85
Parker R, Aggleton P; HIV and AIDS - related stigma and discrimination: a conceptual framework and implication for action. July 2003; 57(1): 13-24.
Lau J., Tsui H Discriminatory attitude towards PLHIV and associated factors; A population based study in the Chinese general population.
April 2005; 22 (1): 139-52.
Mahendra VS, Gilborn L, Bharat S, Mudoi R, Gupta I, George B, Samson L, Daly C, Pulerwitz J: Understanding and measuring AIDS - related stigma in health care settings; a developing country perspective. Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS. 2007; (2): 616- 625.
K.S. Hedge Medical academy research on HIV knowledge attitude perceived benefits and risk of HIV testing among pregnant women in rural
s o u t h e r n I n d i a , a c c e s s e d f r o m w w w . l i e b e r t o n l i n e . c o m
<http://www.liebertonline.com/> on 26th April 2010.
Khakha D: Discrimination in health care to patients living with HIV/AIDS. The nursing journal of Indian. 2003; 94 (12): 273-275.
FMOH. National Reproductive Health survey report. FMOH Abuja 2007.
National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) 2010. UNGASS Progress Country Report Nigeria 2010. Abuja: NACA/UNAIDS
Falade S. History of Osogbo Town. Accessed
f r o m w w w . t c d i r e c t . c o . u k . r t d
<http://www.tcdirect.co.uk.rtd/>. April 26th, 2010.
FMOH. National Reproductive Health survey 28.
report. FMOH Abuja 2007.
Olawuyi JF (ed. Biostatistics: A foundation course in health sciences: formulas for calculating sample size. 1st ed. Toyin Alabi Printing Co; 1996. p. 114-5.
Myer L, Morroni C and Cooper D. Community attitude towards sexual activity and Child bearing by HIV positive people in South Africa.
AIDS care, 2006; 18 (7):772-776.
Unnikrishnan B, Prasanna PM , Rekha T , and
Reshmi B. Awareness and Attitude of the
General Public Toward HIV/AIDS in Coastal Karnataka. Indian J Community Med. 2010 January; 35(1): 142-146.
Unadike BC , Ekrikpo UE , Bassey EA . Awareness, knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS and sexual behaviour amongst preclinical, medical students in a Nigerian University. Niger J Med. 2012 Jul-Sep; 21(3):272-6.
Onah HE, Mbah AU, Chukwuka JC, Ikeme AC. HIV/AIDS awareness and sexual practices among undergraduates in Enugu, Nigeria. Nigerian Postgraduaate Medical Journal. 2004; 11 (2):121-125.
Weiss SH , Weston CB , Quirinale J Safe sex? Misconceptions, gender differences and barriers among injection drug users: a focus group approach. AIDS Educ Prev. 1993 ;5 (4):279-93.
Asekun-Olarinmoye EO, Olajide FO and Asekun-Olarinmoye, IO. HIV/AIDS Preventive Measures among Public Secondary
School students in a Sub-Urban Community in Southwestern Nigeria. Acta Satech. 2011; 4(1):81-96.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Research Journal of Health Sciences
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Research Journal of Health Sciences journal is a peer reviewed, Open Access journal. The Journal subscribed to terms and conditions of Open Access publication. Articles are distributed under the terms of Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-nd/4.0). All articles are made freely accessible for everyone to read, download, copy and distribute as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
