| dc.description.abstract | People with the human immunodeficiency virus need good nutrition to sustain
their health and minimize morbidity episodes. Appropriate health care at the
hospital level is unaffordable and care has shifted to home based setting. Hence
home based care centres have come up offering services to people living with
the human immunodeficiency virus. However, the quality of these services is not
monitored and there is a possibility that the right information regarding nutrition
may not be reaching the people with the human immunodeficiency virus.
The study aimed at assessing nutritional knowledge, dietary practices, and food
safety and hygiene practices of people with the human immunodeficiency virus
and how these relate with nutritional and morbidity status at Faraja trust ( a home
based care centre in Ongata Rongai of Kajiado District in Kenya. The outcome of
the assessment was a reflection of the extent to which nutritional interventions
have been incorporated into the programme. The study was based on the
hypothesis that knowledge of nutrition, food safety and hygiene influence
nutritional and morbidity status of people with human immunodeficiency virus.
Sixty five HIV positive individuals participated in this study. Quantitative and
qualitative methods of data collection were employed. Quantitative data was
collected using a questionnaire that was designed to collect socio-demographic
information of the study group, nutritional status, morbidity experience, dietary
practices, food safety and hygiene practices, nutritional knowledge and food
accessibility. Qualitative data was collected through a focus group discussion.
Data was analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version
11.5.
Majority (84.6%) of the client? were women About two thirds of the respondents
were aged between 30-44 years. Most (66.1%) of them were living below the
poverty line. Main source of food for most respondents (72.3%) was through
purchase. Average expenditure on food of the average income of respondents
was 71.7%. The level of malnutrition was high using both Mid Upper Arm
Circumference (31%) and Body Mass Index (32%) respectively. Most of the
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people had medium !evel of nutritional knowledge even though there was no
association between nutritional knowledge and nutritional status as well as
morbidity. Results based on dietary diversity score elicited that majority were
within the average diversity bracket. There was no association between dietary
diversity and nutritional and morbidity status. Most of the individuals (68%) had
moderate level of knowledge of food safety and hygiene. Food safety and
hygiene (hand washing) was associated with nutritional status (8MI) p<0.05 (P
0.038). Morbidity was associated with method of storage of left over food p <0.05
(p=0.036). There was no association between the rest of the hygiene factors that
were considered with nutritional and morbidity status. No association was noted
between main source of food and nutritional and morbidity status of the people.
In conclusion, high levels of malnutrition and morbidity in Faraja Home Based
Care Centre are associated with food insecurity, inability to translate nutrition
knowledge into practice and poor food safety and hygiene practices. This implies
that basic nutritional and food hygiene principles and measures to improve food
security have not been adequately implemented at the centre.
It is recommended that the Community Based Care Centre and any other
Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome management programme work towards
the improvement of nutritional status and morbidity of infected people through
integrated programmes of nutrition education and counselling as well as food
security and food safety and hygiene initiatives. Programmes should be designed
to address the three interventions simultaneously because they are interrelated
and addressing them singly among people of low socio-economic status cannot
translate into improved nutritional and morbidity status. | en |
