HIV/AIDS Awareness and Testing in Ampath and Non– Ampath Served Centres as Observed During Community Based Education and Service (COBES)

Abstract

COBES is a programme in the Moi University College of Health Sciences’ curricula that seeks to expose students to the community health needs and aims to educate them on how to carry out a community entry, diagnosis and interventions, with the purpose of determining appropriate disease prevention and health promotion measures. HIV/AIDS is one of the major health challenges in the communities around the COBES stations, with prevalence as high as 11 percent in some areas. The Academic Model of Providing Access to Health Care (AMPATH) is a consortium that operates in North Rift and part of Western and Nyanza provinces, with its main activities aimed at HIV/AIDS care and prevention. The study sought to determine the impact of AMPATH initiative on HIV/AIDS awareness and testing in stations where it operates in contrast to those without its operations. The research sites were identified from among the COBES stations in Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza Provinces and grouped as either AMPATH or Non-AMPATH stations, out of which 5 were sampled randomly from each category. In each station a review of COBES reports between the year 2011 and 2014 was done,focussing on the level of HIV/AIDS awareness and testing.The level of percentages of awareness and testing in each site over the years were taken and compared between the two categories viz AMPATH verses Non-AMPATH centres. The data was analyzed using Statistical Packaging for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. The ethical requirements for conducting research according to the Moi University/MTRH institutional research and ethics Committee (IREC) were adhered to. From the findings, an average of 79.75% of the respondents had done an HIV test in AMPATH stations compared to 62% in Non –AMPATH stations in the year 2011.In 2012, 86% had done testing against 76.2% in Non-AMPATH stations. In the same year, general good awareness on HIV/AIDS in AMPATH stations was at 49% while in Non-AMPATH stations it was 46.8%. Those who had done testing in AMPATH stations in 2013 averaged 86.5% with an awareness of 55.5 % compared to Non AMPATH with 74.8% tested and an awareness of 48.8%. In 2014, the average proportion of the respondents tested in AMPATH sites was 80.75% with good awareness level at 65.5%, whereas in Non –AMPATH stations it was 76.5 % tested with awareness rate at 54.4%. AMPATH centres showed a generally higher percentage of those who had done an HIV testing and had good knowledge concerning the disease.