| dc.description.abstract | The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is an immune system virus which targets one’s defense system against infections thereby destroying and impairing all the functioning of all immune cells. Since the launch of the 90-90-90 campaign in Melbourne, significant improvements have been realized towards attaining the predicted targets. One was that at least half of the population living with HIV/AIDs has access to treatment. This therefore saw a global decline in HIV/AIDs related mortalities to 32 percent as well as global new infection rates to 16 percent in a period of six (6) years, that is 2010 to 2016. Despite all the efforts to curb HIV, there are observations of 1 percent increase in HIV in the mid-eastern region of the country in the year 2011 to 2017 from 4.1 percent to 5.1 percent respectively hence the overall percentages ranging from 31.2 in the northern region to 51.3 in the east central all being ignorant of their status as far as HIV is concerned.
Objective: The main objectives of the study, was to examine the factors influencing people’s knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas in the eastern region among those aged 15 and above in Uganda. This study further had specific objectives which included; finding out the socio-economic factors which influence people’s knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas in the eastern region among those aged 15 and above and other associated factors, assessing behavioral factors that influence knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas in the eastern region among those aged 15 and above and lastly, determining uptake of HIV testing among people in eastern Uganda aged 15 and above.
Methodology: This was entirely a quantitative based study, whose descriptive variables used to examine the factors influencing knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas in the eastern region among those aged 15 and above included, Age, wealth status, occupation, residence, religion, listens to radio, watches television, education, and marital status. Further, this study made use of two different types of analysis that is; univariate to show descriptions of each study variable in form of frequencies and percentages, and bivariate analysis to show the degree of significances and association between people’s knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas in the eastern region among those aged 15 and above and other variables chosen social, demographic and behavioural factors under study.
Results: The study shows that more people had knowledge on HIV and HIV testing areas at 88.2 percent (5643 people). This translates that for every 10 people at least 8 people knew about HIV as well as where HIV was tested from. Additionally, at bivariate level of analysis, the study showed that, both socio-economic and behavioural factors positively influence one’s knowledge on matters relating to HIV and HIV testing areas in eastern region for those aged 15 and above as they show cased A P-value = 0.000 after running the Chi-square test.
Recommendations: As of the study, there were mainly three recommendations, first is introduction of sex education or sex related subjects and courses such as PIASCY. Secondly, sensitization of the masses on the merits and demerits of being knowledge on issues relation to HIV specifically prevention and testing. Finally, massive investments in all sectors of the region but mainly in media for ease and rapid transfer and dissemination of information regarding knowledge on HIV an HIV testing areas in the region. | en_US |
