| dc.description.abstract | Background:
Uganda being a signatory to a number of global proclamations including the commitments in the 2011 UN Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, it has made a remarkable achievement in the control of HIV and AIDS since 1990’s, curbing down the incidence of HIV and AIDS amongst persons between 15-49 years from 18.5% in 1992 to 6.4% in 2004/5. Objectives: The intention of the research was to establish the knowledge, attitude and practices of HIV and AIDS infection prevention among secondary school students aged in Makindye division.
Methods:
The study was cross-sectional in nature engaging384 participants using multi-stage sampling method. The questionnaire that was used to collect data from the participants was self-administered. Data analysis was done employing a 16.0 version of SPSS.
Results:
The majority of the participants were females (51.3%), 16 years old (21.9%) with a senior three level of education (25%) and were Muslims (31.8%) residing in rural areas (52.9%). Gender (X2=5.892, p-value=0.015) was found to have a statistically significant relationship with HIV and AIDS Infection prevention among the general information about the respondents where males were more willing to prevent from aids infection than females. Majority of the study participants had ever heard about HIV and AIDS had knowledge about how HIV/AIDS prevented acquired and its effects Most participants had never had sex (62.8%), never used a condom (72.1%), had no sexual partners (59.9%), used abstinence as one of the measures to protect self from HIV and AIDS infection (71.1%), took care to avoid friends that influence to have sex (88.5%) and had friends that take alcohol (45.8%). Number of sexual partners (X2=8.723, p-value=0.033) was observed to have a statistical significant effect on HIV and AIDS infection prevention among the practices of participants and HIV and AIDS infection prevention.
Conclusions:
The surveyed students had good Knowledge, attitudes towards HIV infection prevention. The study highlighted that most students were willing to abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage, stick to one sexual partner, avoid spreading HIV and AIDS Infection if tested positive, take ARV's if positive, use a condom when to have sex and that they were not at risk of getting an STI. The attitudes towards HIV/AIDS infection prevention among the students was significantly associated with willingness to abstain from sexual intercourse until marriage, willingness to stick to one sexual partner, willingness to take ARVs if positive and willingness to use a condom when to have sex. Negative practices were identified and were associated with HIV and AIDS prevention; they included number of sexual partner's experience of sex and condom use.
Recommendations:
HIV and AIDS related health education programs should be integrated in the programs taught at school. These need to address specific practices, along with knowledge and practices that secondary school students are involved in. Students as well as their parents and teachers should be instructed about all aspects of HIV and AIDS by the media, which at present is the most frequent but not necessarily credible source of information. There should also be a big push to increase teaching efforts in schools on HIV and AIDS prevention. The modes of HIV and AIDS contamination should be discussed with students. | en_US |
