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American Journal of Public Health Research. 2015, 3(1), 8-14
DOI: 10.12691/AJPHR-3-1-2
Original Research

HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Attitude among Military Recruits at Depot Nigeria Army, Zaria, Nigeria

Chinedu John-Camillus IGBOANUSI1, , Tukur DAHIRU2 and Istifanus Anekoson JOSHUA3

1Department of Community Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria

2Department of Community Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

3Department of Community Medicine, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

Pub. Date: January 22, 2015
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Cite this paper

Chinedu John-Camillus IGBOANUSI, Tukur DAHIRU and Istifanus Anekoson JOSHUA. HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Attitude among Military Recruits at Depot Nigeria Army, Zaria, Nigeria. American Journal of Public Health Research. 2015; 3(1):8-14. doi: 10.12691/AJPHR-3-1-2

Abstract

Military personnel have higher HIV/AIDS prevalence than the general population. They tend to be young, single, sexually active and highly mobile and may stay away from their home. This study assessed HIV/AIDS knowledge and attitude among recruits at Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria Nigeria. It was a cross sectional descriptive study carried out February 2011 using 300 structured, self-administered questionnaires. Majority of the respondents (80.3%) were within the age bracket of 20- 24 years with mean age of 21.8 ± 2.0 years, 93% single and 53.3% secondary school graduate. Majority of the respondents (91.0%) have heard of HIV/AIDS, while a lot of them (72.6%) knew those that are victims of the disease. Majority of the respondents (74.3%) also knew that HIV/AIDS was caused by virus. On the overall, only 48.7% of the respondents had good knowledge of the disease. About 80.7% of the respondents would offer assistance to HIV infected people, 62.3% agreed that HIV positive women should not be having babies, while 66.0% believed that HIV/AIDS patients should not be stigmatized against among others. The study revealed amongst others that the recruits had very good knowledge of HIV/AIDS and also good attitudes to it. The recommendations include- aggressive regular HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, development of attitudinal and behavioural change communication strategies for the recruits in particular, health education by faith based organisations. There is also the need to develop a good practical tool and quality control programs for monitoring and evaluation of the various HIV/AIDS awareness programs in the barracks for enhanced effectiveness and efficiency.

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, knowledge, attitude, military recruits, depot zaria, Nigeria

Copyright

Creative CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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