The Relationship Between Type Of HIV Prevention Method, Community Perception And Adherence To HIV Prevention Methods, Among Women Aged 18-49 In Embakasi South-Nairobi County

Abstract

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention remains one of the world's top priorities for public health and development. In Kenya, despite the fact that several prevention methods have been introduced, both by the government and non-governmental organizations, to help reduce the rate of new infections, Community perceptions play a role in the utilization of any intervention. Adherence to the prevention methods will be determinant of the perception towards the prevention methods, the objective of this study was therefore, to establish the relationship between community perception and adherence with regard to various type of prevention methods in Embakasi South. Literature was reviewed in regard to employment, marital status, education, social, economic status, religion and rites of passage. The target population was 99,400. A descriptive design was used, stratified random sampling procedure was employed to come up with 380 respondents in the study. Self-administered questionnaire and focus group discussions (FGD) was utilized for data collection. To analysis collected data. Both inferential and descriptive statistics was employed. The study findings were: Multinomial logistic Regression analysis indicated that, community perception to the type of HIV prevention method used was negative for individuals using behavioral and structural methods compared to those using biomedical method (β=-.0623, t=-0.85, p=0.393) and (β=-.0051, t=-0.08, p=0.940) at the 5% level of significance respectively and community adherence to the type of HIV prevention method used was negative for individuals using behavioral and structural methods compared to those using biomedical method (β=-.2053 , t=--2.91, p= 0.004) and (β= .02984) , t= 0.46, p= 0.647) at the 5% level of significance respectively. Chi-Square test for association between the two samples. Cramer's V was used to determine the strength of the association and the perception is associated (β2=0. 8034, p=0,370, β=0. 0478). The combination was not statistically significant in the sense that the p-value was higher than 5%. As shown by the value of V of Cramer of 0.0478, the force of the association was weak. The study concluded that there is a relationship between type of prevention method, community perception and adherence to the prevention method among women in Embakasi-south. It is also seen that biomedical methods are more adhered to and perceived easy to use. Structural method and behavioral methods are less adhered to and perceived negatively. The study recommends a need to create more awareness by both government and non-governmental bodies on structural and behavioral prevention.