HIV Preventive Measures Among Residents of Nyakabirizi Town, Bushenyi District in Western-Uganda.

ABSTRACT Background: HIV spreads immunodeficiency syndrome commonly known as AIDS making it 36.7 million people worldwide, 25.3 million people in Africa and 1.6 million people in Uganda living with HIV/AIDS. Objectives: the main objective of this study was to determine the different methods used by residents of Nyakabirizi town towards the prevention of HIV spread. Study design: This was an analytical cross-sectional study Subject: 196 people were sampled from Nyakabirizi town. The sampled people where those in the ages of 15-35 years. Simple random sampling was used and self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data .response rate was 100%.Study period was August 2017-December 2017 Results: Participants knew different HIV preventive measures and conveniently used some. Majority of the participants were 26-30 years. The study revealed that all the participants knew ABC measures.in addition to this, 84also knew delivering from hospitals to ensure PMTCT, 50 also knew safe blood transfusion and avoiding sharing of sharps with infected fellows, 2 mentioned use of PEP thus 60 participants only mentioned ABC measures. It was found out that most people conveniently used condoms[(81)(41.3%)],delivering from hospitals[(54)(27.6%0],HIV testing and counselling[(30)(15.3%)],abstinence[(10)(5.1%)] and[(02)(1.0%)] mentioned to have ever used PEP. Conclusion: People knew most of the HIV preventive methods but only a few of these methods were being used ignoring others as the majorly used methods were condom use and producing from hospitals to ensure PMTCT. This was attributed to availability, accessibility and side effects of some methods. Thus there is a need to give more knowledge about these methods and addressing the factors hindering their usage.