HIV/AIDS PREVENTIVE HEALTH BEHAVIOURS AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Studies have shown that HIV/AIDS remains a major public health challenge worldwide and the adoption of preventive health behaviour holds the key to its control. Little is known, however, about the typology of preventive health behaviour adopted by undergraduates of the University of Ibadan against the disease. This study, therefore determined the pattern and types of HIV preventive health behaviour among undergraduates of the University. The study was cross-sectional in design. A two-stage sampling procedure was used to randomly select 400 students from the Faculties of Pharmacy, the Social Sciences, Arts and Dentistry out of the thirteen faculties in the university. A validated questionnaire which assessed the students' preventive health behaviour and the antecedent factors was used for data collection. Descriptive and Chi-square statistics were used for data analysis. The mean age of the participants was 22.5 years±3.6. Most (80.3%) of them were Christians. Participants' overall mean knowledge score on HIV was 18.9 out of 25 points. There was no gender difference in knowledge with males and females having the same mean score of 18.9. Respondents' knowledge score by level of study were as follows: first year-18.9, second year-18.2; third year-18.5; fourth year-19.3; fifth year-19.6; and sixth year-19.7 (p>0.05). The participants' mean knowledge scores by occupation of their fathers were: trading-18.5; civil service-18.9; farming-18.7; and unemployed-17.4 (p>0.05). The mean knowledge score by occupation of their mothers were: trading-18.4; civil service-20.7; farming-19.4: and unemployed-17.3 (p< 0.05). Most participants (97.3%) believed that sexual intercourse was risky. A majority (96.3%) reported that blood transfusion could transmit HIV. The preventive health practices adopted by the participants were avoiding sharing of skin-piercing instruments (93.6%); sexual abstinence (70.3%) condom use (58.6%). The prevalence of condom use by religion was as follow:Christian -76%. Muslim-23.6%; Traditionalist-0.04% (p>0.05). More males (51.9%) than females (48.1%) practiced consistent use of condom. The prevalence of consistent use of condom by faculty was Social Sciences-28.6%; Arts-19.5%, Dentistry-28.6%; and Pharmacy-23.3%. More participants in the Faculty of the Social Sciences (26.4%) avoided sharing of skin-piercing instruments compared to those in the Arts (24.8%), Dentistry (23.2%) and Pharmacy (25.6%) More females (54.2%) than males (45.8%) abstained from sex (p<0.05). A majority (77.7%) of those that avoided skin-piercing instruments did so "always". The mass media topped the Iist of the sources of motivation to adopt HIV/AIDS preventive health behavior relating to the following: sexual abstinence (26.8%), consistent use of condom (31.3%), avoiding sharing of skin-piercing instrument (29.7%) and liming the number of sexual partner to one uninfected person (26.6%). Health personnel constituted the main factor that influenced the use of safe injection needles (29.3%). The adoption of each of the types of HIV preventive health behaviour among the participants was low in spite of their general high level of knowledge of the disease. Health education strategies such as peer education, social marketing and advocacy are needed to promote the adoption of preventive health behaviour among the students.