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The main aim of the study was to assess the determinants of men involvement in
HIV/AIDS Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) in Ruangwa District council.
The specific objectives were: to document the status of men involvement in the
HIV/AIDS VCT, investigate efforts made by the Ruangwa District Council to
encourage men involvement in HIV/AIDS VCT, to find out influencing factors and
limiting factors and explore ways of promoting participation of men in the VCT.
The study used a cross-sectional research design and involved 78 respondents who
were sampled purposively and randomly. Data were collected using questionnaires,
interview, and documentary review and were analyzed by using Statistical Package
for Social Sciences (SPSS) and MS Excel.
Findings on the status of the HIV/AIDS VCT show that many people had heard
about it, many respondents agreed that the rate of performance of VCT was very
important to them, number of VCT centres was not enough and number of men
participating in the HIV/AIDS VCT was smaller than that of women. The efforts
made by Ruangwa District Council to encourage men involvement in the HIV/AIDS
VCT were, establishment of Council Multi-Sectoral AIDS committee (CMAC),
establishment of HIV/AIDS radio programmes, establishment of secondary schools
and youth HIV/AIDS clubs, encourage preventive mother to child transmission
(PMTCT), factors hindering men from participating in HIV/AIDS VCT were,
absence of confidentiality, fear of positive results, stigma, location of VCT room and
distance to VCT centers, while facilitating factors were the health problems, religious
influence and marriage purposes.
The study came up with the following policy implications so as to encourage men in
HIV/AIDS voluntary counseling and testing: To meet minimum requirement for
VCT, to improve the quality of VCT centres, site security and confidentiality and
human resources issues prioritised for sustainability. |
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