9. Money for upkeep on campus: 1 for “Not enough”, 2 for “Just enough”, 3 for
5.6 Knowledge of HIV and AIDS transmission (Section G) and knowledge of protection against infection (Section H)
It is evident from the above preliminary analysis that there are clear distinctions in the demography of students of each institution who participated in this study. The most glaring differences are found where the students were brought up as youths, the level of resources from homes, parental incomes, stipend, and single parenthood. In the subsequent analyses, it would be clearer if these differences generated any statistical differences in the responses to issues pertaining to the knowledge, awareness, prevention and transmission of HIV between the two institutions.
5.6 Knowledge of HIV and AIDS transmission (Section G) and knowledge of protection
Evidently mean scores are high for both institutions except in those that enter university at >30 years and widows (for UNAD). UNIZULU scored higher than UNAD in all variables, indicating that though both institutions have high knowledge about different modes of transmission, UNIZULU has higher knowledge which should translate to more positive lifestyles among the UNIZULU’s students. In both institutions Faculty of Science displayed slightly higher knowledge than Faculty of Education. Biochemistry scored the highest, slightly higher than Educational Psychology, Chemistry and Education Science. Education Science scored lowest at UNAD but higher than Educational Psychology at UNIZULU.
Male respondents displayed better scores than female respondents in this section.
Respondents at 15-18 and 19-21 years brackets, on entry to university, showed higher knowledge than the other age groups, with 15-18 years group doing best in the two institutions. The married respondents scored higher than the singles at UNAD; this trend was reversed at UNIZULU. Those with no child were second under number of children in both institutions whereas those with one child at UNIZULU and those with more than two children at UNAD came first. The trend for religion followed: Christians > Islam > Traditional > others (for UNAD). It is difficult to place the sequence for UNIZULU as Islam that posted higher mean score had only three respondents. Otherwise, Christians were first followed by others and traditionalists last for UNIZULU.
The observation under ‘Where grown up’ posed an interesting trend for UNAD, where a systematic increase in mean scores was observed for those from ‘villages/rural areas to capital cities’. The trend in UNIZULU was similar for those from ‘villages/rural areas to big towns’ and
those from capital cities least, presumably because they were negligible in number (13; 1.5 %).
For both institutions those that ‘Have most things’ and those that had ‘Just enough’ pooled first and second highest. However, those that had ‘More than enough’ were third at UNAD while those who did not have enough at UNIZULU were third. Unlike those who grew up in a capital city, which yielded highest knowledge above, it seems that those whose family resources were more than enough at UNAD did not necessarily grow up in the capital cities. A similar trend to
‘where grown up’ was observed for money available as stipend for UNAD, where mean scores increased as available money increases. A similar trend was also observed for UNIZULU from
‘not enough’ to ‘enough’ and like it was observed above, those with ‘more than enough’ rated lowest again presumably because the number of respondent was merely 10.
5.6.2 Knowledge of protection against HIV and AIDS infection (Section H)
Data from this section are presented in Table 5.6 (Appendix C). Generally scores were higher than in section G, and generally high for both institutions. However, UNIZULU is marginally higher than UNAD except in some cases.
UNAD’s mean scores were higher for respondents from Chemistry, Educational Psychology and Science Education, those within 22-24 years on entry to university, those in the 4th year of study, married respondents, those with more than two children, and those who had more than enough stipend. The substantial improvement in the knowledge of protection against infection is interesting particularly in circumstances where UNIZULU did much better in section G. One would therefore expect that this outcome would play out in the respondents’ prioritization of preventive strategies (Section I).
Other trends include males recording better mean score than the females. At age on entry to university the 15-18 years group showed highest score for UNAD whereas this fell on 19-21 years group for UNIZULU. The second highest for UNIZULU were those in the 15-18 years group whereas this fell on the 22-24 years group for UNAD. The core of those who had highest knowledge of protection fell within 15-24 years age bracket for both institutions. It is interesting that the ‘age now’ revealed that the 15-18 years group had lost first position at UNAD to become the fourth in this variable whereas this group retained the first position at UNIZULU. One expects that students within this age group came fresh from high schools and proceeded to the university. Those at UNIZULU would have spent about 8-10 months of studies in their first year when the survey was done because of the South African calendar that runs from February to December. For Nigeria the school calendar runs from September-June and therefore the UNAD’s first year students would have spent barely 2-3 months in the University before the survey and the impact of exploitation of fresh students by senior students common in many Nigerian universities and the unbridled perception of freedom from family control would have robbed on their sense of judgement.
First level respondents recorded highest score for UNAD as against second level respondents for UNIZULU. The other levels for each institution increased for UNAD but decreased for UNIZULU. Could these be that the UNIZULU respondents became more permissive as they advanced in their studies while UNAD’s became more responsible with their sexual lifestyles?
Single respondents had more knowledge than the married ones for both institutions. Divorced and widowed respondents are too few to make any tangible deduction but in both cases the
knowledge was apparently high. Those with no children posted the second highest mean scores for UNAD and UNIZULU, whereas UNAD’s highest was from those with more than two children that of UNIZULU was from those with one child. Christians from UNAD had highest scores followed by Islam and traditional in that sequence. UNIZULU Moslems were too few (3 respondents) but most positive, otherwise those who belonged to ‘others’ and Christians would have been the highest and second highest respectively for the institution.
Those from capital cities, those who had most things from family resources and those who had more than enough stipends score highest in UNAD as against those from town/semi urban areas, those who had most things from family resources and those with just enough stipends at UNIZULU. These were followed by those from towns/semi urban areas, those with more than enough family resources and those with just enough stipends for UNAD and those from village/rural areas, those with just enough family resources and those who had enough stipends for UNIZULU. It is evident that while ‘where grown up’ played a positive influence on respondents from UNAD the level of mean score from those of UNIZULU parallels that for respondents from towns/semi urban, higher than those from big towns and just a little lower than those from capital cities from UNAD. Thus ‘where grown up’ had no discernible difference for UNIZULU respondents. However, socio-economic differences appeared to play some roles, particularly at the level of those who claimed to have more than enough from family resources as well as from stipends.
It could be concluded that age, sex, marital status, number of children, level of education and economic and environmental factors influence the respondents’ knowledge of transmission and protection but the trends in some of these variables did not follow a particular direction.
Similar observations were reported from a study on Chinese college students where students returned inconsistent levels of knowledge of HIV/AIDS with significant differences due to gender, residence, rural/urban origin, and levels of study (Li, et al., 2004). In a study carried out in Madagascar (Lanouette, et al., 2003), level of education did not associate with level of knowledge whereas age did, with younger respondents recording better mean scores. There was no significant diference in mean scores for men and women.
5.7 Students’ perception about preventive strategies (Section I)