Peer Education and Behaviour Change on Hiv/Aids Prevention in Secondary Schools in Rachuonyo District, Kenya: Prospects and Policy.
By the end of 2012, about 1.2 million Kenyans were living with the HIV virus; which is expected to reach 1.8 million by 2015, mainly due to new infections. The age bracket 15-24 years provided opportunity for interventions such as peer education to prevent new infections and save future generations from the scourge. The aim of this study was to determine the difference between peer education club members (beneficiaries) and non-members (non-beneficiaries) in terms of behaviour change indicators, including abstinence, faithfulness to a partner, condom use and HIV testing. The study covered eight public secondary schools in Rachuonyo County, where peer education clubs had been operational for two years. The static group comparison design was applied to guide the research process, and primary data sourced from 260 beneficiaries and 212 non-beneficiaries. Club membership and class registers were used to develop sampling frames for beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, respectively. Systematic random sampling procedure was applied to select participants and Fisher’s formula used to determine sample sizes. Quantitative analysis techniques included cross-tabulations with Chi square statistic, beta co-efficients (β), and odds ratios [Exp (β)]. The study found that 27 (10.4%) beneficiaries and 8 (3.8%) non-beneficiaries were not sexually active, hence, were likely to be practicing abstinence. Controlling for gender, age, religion, orphan hood status and schooling consistency, the odds ratios indicated that beneficiaries had about 2.6 times the odds of practicing abstinence as non-beneficiaries (β = 0.946, SE = 0.189, CI = 1.78-3.73); beneficiaries were about 3.3 times as likely to practice faithfulness to an uninfected partner as non-beneficiaries (β = 1.197, SE = 0.272, CI = 1.94-5.64). Furthermore, beneficiaries had about 2.6 times the odds of using condoms consistently as non-beneficiaries (β = 0.969, SE = 0.186, CI = 1.83-3.78); and regarding HIV testing, beneficia
