Adherence to HIV Treatment among Children and Adolescents in Selected Nigerian States: Gaps and Lessons

Abstract

By the tenderness of their ages, the responsibility for adhering to HIV-treatment among children and adolescents falls squarely on the shoulders of parents and/or caregivers. Some of the young people that largely follow treatment regimen do so by persuasion and not the strength of their conviction about the essence of the therapy. This study was an appraisal of HIV-treatment adherence among children and adolescents in Anambra, Oyo, Rivers and Taraba states. Data were collected through in-depth and key informant interviews involving critical stakeholders. Findings show that poverty is a major factor in lack of adherence including in the inability to pick up drug due to cost of transportation to facilities; some who experienced viral suppression assumed they had become non-reactive and stopped taking drugs only to relapse; attitude of patients that sometimes suggests that skipping of drugs may not be harmful; lack of food and refusal of patients to take their drugs; adherence fatigue and getting to facilities from distant places including rural areas requiring payment for transportation in the context of poverty; forgetfulness and non-use of alarm clocks for reminders, stigma that prompts some to leave facilities on sighting a familiar person among others. There is need for more vigorous sensitization of communities and caregiver on the essence of strict adherence to treatment as the surest way of attaining viral suppression among young people living with HIV/AIDS.

Psychosocial Predictors of Secondary School Students’ Attitude Towards Cheating in Examination in Emuoha Local Government Area, Rivers State

“…According to Hornby (2014), examination is "a formal test involving written or oral question with no limited access to textbooks or the likes". In the words of Nwokocha and Adesanya (1995), examination is the formal assessment of students in order to determine their extent of mastery of the subject content. Olamide (2002) also noted that examination to its widest sense, though influenced by some extraneous variables should be as objective as possible in order to induce valid judgement about the students.…”

“…In the views of Nwokocha and Adesanya (1995), cheating has been seen to be an attitude most students develop while in school. Cheating in examination according to them involves an insincere act of using memory aids and other methods that gives an individual unfair advantage over others during the process of examination.…”