Risk of Hiv infection among adolescents in Asokore Mampong municipality

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Date
November, 2019
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Abstract
This study sought to identify risk factors for HIV/AIDS among Junior High School students in the Asokore Mampong Municipality through assessing the knowledge of adolescents on HIV/AIDS and sex education, identifying risky sexual behaviours and also exploring cultural practices which could increase adolescents‟ risk of contracting HIV. A cross-sectional school-based design using simple random sampling technique was employed. Data collection was done using self-administered questionnaires among 403 adolescent High School students and analyzed using STATA version 14.0. The results were presented in frequencies, percentages for descriptive analysis and logistic regression were also used to determine the relationship between selected independent variables on the dependent variables with p < 0.05 being the threshold to measure statistically significant association. The results indicated that majority (50.2%) of the students between the age group 10-14 years and are mostly in JHS 2 (49.8%) had more knowledge on HIV with internet their major source of their knowledge than their counterparts. Majority (51.4%) of the students between the age group 10-14 years and are mostly in JHS 2 (62.5%) indicated not having sex before and majority of students who have had sex before between the age group 10-14 years representing (55.3%) had sex partners between 1-3 and are mostly in JHS 2 (67.1%). A significant number of students (51.1%) between age group 10-14 years indicated that cultural practices in their communities exposed them to blood contact or bodily fluids and the most dominant cultural practice as indicated by the students was male circumcision. Results from the logistic regression shows that, socio-demographic factors such as age (p=0.385), religion (p=0.435), class (p=0.615), were not found to be associated respondent‟s perceived of having HIV , level of knowledge of perceived risk of HIV were found not statistically significantly associated with the perceived risk of having HIV which indicated no significant influence( p=0.770) on perceived risk of HIV. Respondents who indicated that they had ever had sex had a significantly (p = 0.016) higher perceived risk of having HIV.
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A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfilment of requirement for the award of Degree in MPH Health Education and Promotion.
Keywords
Hiv infection, Adolescents, Asokore Mampong
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