Assessments of factors associated with comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention among young people (15-24 years): Data: UDHS 2016

Abstract

The study assessed factors that are significantly associated with comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention among young people (15-24years) using UDHS data collected by UBOS in 2016. Data analysis was done at univariate, bivariate and multivariate in STATA version 15. A total of 10272 young people aged 15 to 24 years in Uganda were considered for the study. Results showed that majority of the youths were females (78%) and aged 15 to 19 years (54%). Most of the youths were from rural areas (76%), had never been married (58%) and had attained only primary education (60%). Nearly equal number of youths was from poor household (41%) or rich households (41%) and a higher proportion of youths reported that they were working. With regard to comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention, only (45%) of the youths had comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention that is they knew the two prevention measures that reduce the risk of getting HIV, rejected the two most common local misconceptions about HIV transmission and knew that a healthy-looking person can have HIV At bivariate analysis Chi-square results showed that age, place of residence, marital status, education level and wealth quintile were significantly associated with comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention. These factors were taken for further analysis at multivariate analysis using binary logistic regression. Binary logistic regression results showed that age, place of residence, marital status, education level and wealth quintile were significantly associated with comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention where youths that were aged 20 to 24 years, had ever been married, from urban areas, had attained at least tertiary education and were from rich families were more likely to have comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention The study recommends Government and other stake holders such as NGOs dealing HIV/AIDS support need to do more sanitization about HIV prevention especially among teenagers, less educated individuals, those from rural areas and poor households in Uganda in order to increase on their knowledge about HIV prevention methods which would significantly reduce their risk of contracting HIV and need for further study assessing HIV prevalence and factors associated among young people aged 15 to 24 years since most of them did not have comprehensive knowledge about HIV prevention.