Gender differences in practice of HIV voluntary counselling among adolescents in Secondary Schools in Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed gender differences in practice of HIV voluntary counselling among secondary school adolescents in Edo State. One hypothesis guided the study. This was a descriptive study based on survey research design. One thousand, nine hundred and eighty eight (1988) secondary school adolescents were sampled from across secondary schools in Edo State using multi-stage stratified simple random sampling technique. A validated instrument titled “Practice of HIV Voluntary Counselling Questionnaire (PHVCQ)” developed by the researcher was used to gather information for the study. The instrument was content validated by experts. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha. The alpha level showed the following result: practice of HIV voluntary counselling = 0.75. The instrument was administered on the study participants by the researcher and six research assistants. Data collected were analysed using t-test. The analysis yielded the following results: that there was gender differences in practice of HIV voluntary counselling among adolescents in secondary schools in Edo State. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made among others: government should put policy in place to provide free HIV voluntary counselling for adolescents in schools and school counsellors should intensify efforts through enlightenment campaigns on the need for students to participate in HIV voluntary counselling and HIV/AIDS education.