Knowledge of HIV and VCT and attitude to VCT among National Youth Service Corps members in Ilesa and Ife, South Western Nigeria.

Abstract

The study assessed knowledge about Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) and attitude to VCT among National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Ilesa and Ile-Ife, South-Western, Nigeria. The study employed a cross-sectional descriptive design. A pre-tested, self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from 330 NYSC members who were recruited by multi-stage sampling method from Ilesa and Ile-Ife Local Government Areas, Osun State, Nigeria. The data was analysed using SPSS version 15. The results showed that over 75% of the respondents knew the common modes of HIV transmission and prevention, the meaning of VCT and also had good attitude to some aspects of VCT. However, most of them equally had misconceptions about HIV and VCT. On the whole, only 19.5 and 20.5% of the respondents had good knowledge of HIV and VCT respectively while the rest had fair and poor knowledge. Fifty eight percent had positive attitude to VCT while 42.0% had negative attitude. The study concluded that the respondents had a fair knowledge of HIV and VCT and a positive attitude to VCT. Educational programs on HIV and VCT, targeted at correcting misconceptions should be intensified among corps members.