HIV/AIDS Related Knowledge and Sexual Behaviour among Disabled People in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania

Abstract

The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania has developed some programmes to control HIV and AIDS. However, disabled people have received little attention in the implementation of such programmes. Therefore, the study from which this paper is based was conducted in early 2010 among 180 disabled respondents in Dar es Salaam, with the specific objectives to: determine the level of awareness about HIV/AIDS knowledge, assess sexual practices that are risky for HIV/AIDS transmission, and determine the correlation between the level of knowledge of HIV/AIDS and sexual behaviour among the disabled. The analysis was done by using SPSS. The findings indicated that the majority of the disabled (78.9%) had heard about HIV/AIDS; only 12 to 39% of the respondents had correct comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS; 39.4% had common misconceptions about HIV/AIDS transmission; the vast majority of those who were married (96.1%) had risky sexual behaviour in the sense that they had had sexual intercourse with people who were not their spouses after marriage; and there was positive correlation between the number of points scored on an index scale which was used to determine knowledge about HIV/AIDS and those scored on another index scale about sexual behaviour (r = +0.0045), although it was not significant (p = 0.562). Based on these findings, it is concluded that although knowledge about HIV/AIDS is substantial among the disabled, it is not applied to sexual behaviour change, mainly because of poverty which makes them to have sex for some payment. On the basis of this conclusion, it is recommended that inclusive HIV/AIDS programmes for the disabled should facilitate their access to financial services for income generating activities.

Keywords: Disabled people, HIV/AIDS related knowledge, sexual behaviour