Survey of attitudes of Kenyan adolescents towards population services international HIV/AIDS social Marketing campaigns: the case of students of the College Of Health Sciences

Abstract

This research study sought to determine the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of the attitudes of students drawn from the College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi toward Population Services International's social marketing campaigns against HIV/Aids. The population of interest was all first year students of the College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi. The students' class registers for the 200512006 academic year were obtained from the University's School of Dental Medicine, School of Medicine, School of Nursing and School of Pharmacy. A total of 546 students, from the four class registers, made the sampling frame. This was a descriptive survey. A sample of 190 students was taken. Although random sampling techniques would have been more appropriate for this research study, convenience sampling techniques were applied. During the field work stage, the researcher encountered significant delays in obtaining first year students' class registers from the School of Dental Surgery and School of Pharmacy. Thus, it was impossible to conduct random sampling techniques which would require following specific students. The alternative was to employ convenience sampling techniques so as to obtain responses from individuals that were easiest to reach. However, measures were taken to ensure that this sample is an accurate representation of the larger population using screening questions before the actual interview process. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire with both open ended and closed questions. Trained research assistants administered the instrument through personal interviews. Generally, all the four HIV/Aids campaigns were well received by the respondents, and each campaign led to some degree of change in behaviour associated with the message. These findings demonstrates that there is a relationship between awareness and knowledge of Population Services International's social marketing campaigns against HIV IAids on one hand, and change in knowledge, perceptions and behaviour relating to sex.