9th International AIDS Conference Berlin, Germany — June 6-11, 1993

Int Conf AIDS 1993 Jun 6-11; 9:121 (abstract no. WS-D18-3)
Matenga E;

OBJECTIVES: The principal objectives sought to review sources of information: to assess the level of knowledge on HIV/AIDS: to assess whether this knowledge was preceded by changed sexual behavioural patterns and lastly to compare some of the findings using selected demographic variables. METHODOLOGY: This study was a descriptive survey in which 124 individual interviews were conducted using a structured questionnaire. The instrument consisted of 90 questions. Random selection procedure was used to select four clinics from the five districts of Harare Province and to select four clinics from 17 clinics in Karoi District, Masionaland West Province. Data was analysed using the SPSS-PC statistical package for social sciences.

RESULTS: The study revealed that many adults had only attained Grade 5-7 level of education. The AIDS education campaign relied heavily on print and electronic media. These media were not easily accessible to the majority of people especially those who lived in rural areas, the urban poor and those with minimum level of education. Over 40% of the respondents believed that HIV was spread through casual contact. There was no evidence of any changes in sexual behaviour as demonstrated by the 67 respondents who were suffering from STDs; 75% of the respondents had multiple partners and only 18% of the respondents claimed to use condoms always in both urban and rural areas. The study concluded that many of the AIDS educational strategies adopted the by the NACP did not meet the needs of the majority of people. The NACP assumed that television, radio and newspapers were accessible in both rural and urban population. The programmes were not based on the learning needs of the adults, nor were the AIDS messages developed by appropriately trained AIDS educators as evidenced by the levels of misconceptions and obvious lack of behaviour change. Rural populations were much more disadvantaged than urban populations because of lack of rural electrification, inability to purchase electronic equipment and lack of daily or weekly papers in the vernacular language. RECOMMENDATIONS: In view of LIPSA findings it can be concluded that the National AIDS Education Campaign has been ineffective and AIDS policy makers are urged to explore traditional methods of communication that take cognizance of learning needs and resources of the learning and target AIDS education to a specific audience. The National AIDS Coordinating Programme is urged to set AIDS objectives and build in evaluation systems.

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