Abstract:
Back ground: Voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) is one of the corner stones of HIV prevention strategies. It is essential to understand HIV testing correlates and their theoretical under spinning in order to promote VCT uptake. From this point of view this study aimed to assess the awareness of college students towards VCT for HIV/AIDS in TTC students ,Gondar.
Objective: The aim of this study to assess knowledge, attitude and practice(KAP) towards VCT among teacher’s Training college (TTC) students in Gondar town.
Methods. : Across sectional study was conducted from January to June 2014 using multistage sampling method, involving stratification of students based on their year of study, followed by random sampling of departments and random selection of students from the departments, to enroll students from different departments in the study. A total of 364 TTC students was included in the study. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16 software. The association between different socio-demographic characteristics of the study participants and their awareness towards VCT for HIV were assessed by Chi square test. A P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant
Result: About 51.6% of the study participants were males and more respondents were age between 17-21 years old. Majority (98.6%) of the respondents were Orthodox with 59.3% reported living in rural areas before joining the college. From the study participants 98.349% were knowledgeable on VCT, 33.65% had positive attitude towards VCT for HIV and 28.6%had had VCT for HIV in the past and 13.7% had taken by this year. Previous residence before joining the college, year of study, sex among the socio-demographic variables and knowledge with attitude that showed statistically
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significant association with the one or more of the outcome variables. Fear of positive results, stigma and discrimination following the positive results were reported as main obstacles for VCT uptake by the college students.
