Home Based Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS; Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice among Family Care Givers at Ukonga Ward in Ilala District
- Mwanza, Tanzania: Dar Es Salaam Medical Students' Journal & Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences [CUHAS – Bugando] 2011
- Pages 23-31
- Dar Es Salaam Medical Students' Journal Volume 18 Issue 1 .
Executive summary:
Background: For many AIDS patients in low income countries such as African countries (Tanzania), hospital care is not always affordable or accessible and home-based care services rarely exist as a solution for meeting needs of PLWHA.
Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of home based care among family care givers for PLWHA.
Setting: Study was conducted at Ukonga ward in Ilala District, Dar es Salaam with family care givers who accepted to participate in the study.
Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study design was used: Convenience sampling was used in recruiting the family care givers who had ever provided or were at that time providing care to PLWHA at Ukonga ward.
Results: 103 Family Care givers participated in this study; 73(71%) were female and 30(29%) were male. The mean age of participants was 38 years. The study revealed that 17% believed that they were knowledgeable, 65(63%) had inadequate knowledge and 21( 20%) had no knowledge whatsoever of HBC for PLWHA.. The relationship of believed knowledge and hospital re-admission of PLWHA was not statistically supported (P < 0.001, P=0.0096 and P= 0.0206 for those who believed that were knowledgeable, had less knowledge and had no knowledge respectively). 86(83%) reported that home is a better place than hospital in caring for PLWHA, and the relationship with hospital re-admission was not significance supported (P=0.2629), 55(53%) reported to have had good practice of Home-Based Care for their patients. The relationship of poor practice of Home Based Care and hospital re-admission of PLWHA was statistically not supported (P=0.61762).
Conclusions and recommendation: The study highlighted that majority of family care givers believed they had inadequate knowledge, had a good attitude and practice of the HBC provision. Therefore HBC Training is important for family members who are taking care of their relatives living with HIV/AIDS and further studies should be conducted in order to explore reasons as to why there is prevalence of hospital re-admission among PLWHA in developing countries like Tanzania.