HIV/AIDS awareness among secondary school youths in Port Harcourt, rivers state, Nigeria

Abstract

This is a questionnaire survey designed to determine the HIV/AIDS awareness among some secondary school youths in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. The study sample consisted of 650 pupils from six secondary schools. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire about their personal background, sexual history, awareness of HIV/AIDS and attitude towards HIV/AIDS. The mean age of the students was 15 years. The results indicated that 99% of the pupils examined were aware of HIV/AIDS. Their sources of information were: the news media (35%), school (26%), personal communication (13%) and others (8%). On their modes of transmission and symptoms of AIDS, 77% and 52% respectively, answered correctly. Of those who are presently sexually active, 26% do not use condoms, yet only 6% thought they were at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Though only 27% of the participants accepted that their level of awareness had affected their sexual behaviours, it appears that students are now exercising caution in starting new relationship, e.g. 24% will insist on the use of a condom, 21% will be interested in finding out the number of previous partners of an intending partner and 26% will insist on abstinence. It was recorded that 29% will insist on a monogamous relationship. It is frightening, that they are unable to assess, correctly, their level of risk. This puts them at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Beyond efforts to spread awareness all interested bodies e.g. Government, teachers, Non Governmental Organizations, media should plan regular programmes to assess the level of success of existing interventions. As the ultimate aim is that pupils are able to develop consistent behaviours that enable them choose safe sexual practices.

Prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among pregnant women in Nigeria: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Full texts of four articles were inaccessible. Twenty-five articles underwent stage 3 screening and 23 articles were selected29–51 after excluding two studies that did not provide the details of HIV diagnostic tools (figure 2).…”

“…The women were aged 15–49 years and all the studies were conducted in healthcare facilities. Ten studies were conducted in tertiary (teaching) hospitals,30–33 35 37 38 40 42 51 five in general hospitals,29 34 41 46 47 two in antenatal care clinics43 49 and one each in the following settings: a military hospital,36 a cottage hospital,44 a Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) centre,45 maternity centres across two contiguous states,48 community-based testing centres50 and a traditional birth home 39. Majority of the studies did not clearly mention the trimester in which the HIV testing was done, however, it was stated that women were tested at the time of booking.…”

“…The overall sample size in individual studies ranged from 118 to 37 464. Majority of the studies were conducted in the South-South geopolitical zone,11 29 31–33 35 36 38 39 41 44 46 followed by North-Central zone 7 31 42 43 45 47 50 51. Few studies were conducted in South-East2 37 40 and South-West2 30 48 geopolitical zones.…”

“…The majority (nine) were cross-sectional studies34 36 38 39 43–45 48 51; two studies each used prospective37 42 and retrospective designs41 46; two studies used a combination of cross-sectional and prospective designs 31 47. Among the seven studies that reported sampling methods, four used simple random sampling37 43 45 48 and the remaining used convenient sampling techniques 31 41 51.…”

“…Among the seven studies that reported sampling methods, four used simple random sampling37 43 45 48 and the remaining used convenient sampling techniques 31 41 51. The study duration was less than a year in most of the studies10 31 34 36 37 41 43 45 48 49 51 whereas eight studies were conducted for a period of 1–3 years 29–31 35 38–40 50. Two studies were conducted for longer durations of 5 and 9 years 42 46.…”