Minet TH, Eyasu HT, Simon AG, Afewerki WT, Henok KA and Russom T
Background: Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon are the highly HIV/AIDS prevalent West African countries. However, studies show that nationally representative or comparative studies had never been done. Hence, this study was focused on associates of comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge and acceptance attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) among male youth of the three countries and comparison by country.
Method: We utilized nationally representative datasets from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of Ivory Coast 2011/2012, Cameroon 2011 and Gabon 2012. A total of 6576 male youth; 1811 (27.5%) Ivorian, 2803 (42.6%) Cameroonian and 1962 (29.8%) Gabonese was taken. We used IBM SPSS version 22 to run multivariate logistic regression taking p-values less than 0.05 as significant.
Results: The comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS and acceptance attitude towards PLHA in all the three countries were low; especially knowledge in Ivory Coast (39.1%) and attitude in Gabon (22.5%) were very low. On multivariate analysis, only age, residence, educational level, and wealth index were significant associates of comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge. On the other hand, age, religion, educational level, and wealth index were significant associates of acceptance attitude towards PLHA. On comparison, Gabonese (AOR=1.50, p<0.001) and Cameroonians (AOR=1.44, p<0.001) were more likely to have comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge than Ivorians. However, Ivorians were 1.18 (AOR=0.85, p=0.032) and Cameroonians were1.26 (AOR=1.26, p=0.001) times more likely to have acceptance attitude than Gabonese.
Conclusion: Comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge and acceptance attitude towards PLHA in the three countries and specifically, acceptance attitude in Gabon was considerably low. Hence, it is crucial to give emphasis on planning policy of transmitting information to youth in a contextually applicable to the socio-cultural differences.
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