Knowledge and Acceptance of HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) among Non Teaching Staff of a Private University in South-West Nigeria:The Case of Babcock University

Introduction: HIV counselling and testing (HCT) is a very significant strategy used in the prevention, treatment and control of HIV/AIDS. Nigeria is one of the countries with highest rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence. Despite the current prevalence of about 5%, very few Nigerian know their HIV status and HCT is acceptance is very low even among the atrisk individuals. The broad objective of this study was to assess the level of knowledge and acceptance of HCT among non-teaching staff of a private university in South West Nigeria.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive quantitative research design was adopted and a total of 126 participants were selected using a convenient non probability sampling technique. Tool for data collection was a self -structured questionnaire which was pretested and Spearman Brown's formula was used to determine the reliability of the tool which yielded a result of 0.97 meaning that the tool was reliable. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS to present the descriptive statistics of demographic variables. A chi-square test was used to measure the association between selected variables.

Result: The mean age of participants was 42.6(SD± 0.9) years. Majority (61.1%) were females with 66.7% being married. Majority of participants (57.1 and 70.6%) were knowledgeable and had acceptance of HCT respectively. Chi-square test shows a significant association between knowledge and acceptance of HCT among participants at χ20f 23.038 and pvalue< 0.001.. Findings also revealed a strong association between gender, and marital status with acceptance of HCT with p-value<0.05 considered as significant.

Conclusion: The findings reveal that lack of knowledge regarding HCT is a major factor affecting its uptake and suggests that serious efforts should be made to increase awareness of HCT among individual. Confidentiality should be assured and maintained to reduce fear of stigma and discrimination.