Analysis of the socio-demographic factors associated with the spread of HIV among women of reproductive age (15-49) in Rakai district

Abstract

The overall focus of this study was to analyze and understand what risk factors (social, economic and demographic) were associated with HIV among women of reproductive age (15 - 49). The study was guided by two specific objectives one of which was to determine the prevalence rate of HIV and the other objective was to determine the factors associated with HIV. Chi square, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression in STATA 14 were used in finding results. From a sample of 9,243 women, only 2,126 women reported to have HIV in the past 12 months implying a relatively low prevalence rate 23.11%. Chi square analysis revealed that HIV is dependent are on the following characteristics i.e. age Marital status, education level, residence, religion, occupation and condom use with X2 P values less than the given significance level of 0.05. From bivariate logistic regression analysis, we found that Never married women (OR = 2.499, CI: 2.112, 2.959), 25-34 (OR = 1.878, CI: 1.536, 2.296), primary literates (OR = 1.899, CI: 1.587, 2.273), secondary literates (OR = 4.269, CI: 3.504, 5.201) Primary literates (OR = 1.172, CI: 0.906, 1.515), students (OR = 18.770, CI: 10.03, 34.20) and inconsistent condom users (OR = 1.752, CI: 1.479, 2.075) are significant with HIV and have higher odds of contracting HIV compared to their corresponding reference categories. Women in the age group 20 - 24 (OR = 0.243, CI: 0.187, 0.315), 25 – 34 (OR = 0.130, CI: 0.102, 0.166), 35+ (OR = 0.119, CI: 0.093, 0.152), previously married women (OR = 0.341, CI: 0.305, 0.382), urban residents (OR = 0.482, CI: 0.432, 0.537) are significant with HIV but have lower odds of contracting HIV compared to their corresponding reference categories.