Socio-Demographic Characteristics of HIV-Infected Patients at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) Comprehensive Care Centre (CCC), Nairobi Kenya

Abstract

The Global human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic entered its fourth decade with approximately 34 million people living with HIV (PLHIV). The years ago to date, the antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs were been scaled up significantly in the Sub-Saharan Africa. Since the first diagnosis of HIV in Kenya in year 1981, care and treatment efforts for the PLHIV had rapidly expanded and 5.3 million people were accessible to ART. Kenya initiated national campaigns to increase HIV testing and counselling, including Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), provider initiated testing and counseling (PITC), outreach testing and counseling, home-based testing and counseling as well as integration of HIC Testing and Counseling (HTC) into antenatal care, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and sexual and reproductive health services. Not much information is available on socio-demographic and clinical aspects of the PLHIV attending the CCC. Objective: To determine the socio-demographic characteristics of HIV-infected patients at the Kenyatta National Hospital Comprehensive Care Centre, Nairobi, Kenya Design: This was a descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study. Settings: The Kenyatta National Hospital Comprehensive Care Centre, Nairobi, Kenya. Methods: This study was conducted on two hundred and seventy two (N=272) participants (Cochran’s formula), comprising 139 males and 133 females aged 18 years and above. The study participants were physically able, literate and they could communicate clearly in English, Kiswahili or both languages, they voluntarily consented to partake the study and they had been attending the CCC for 3 months from August to October 2014 at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Nairobi, Kenya. Consideration for attrition was pegged at 20% of the study population. Systematic, proportionate probability and purposive population sampling techniques were used to sample the study population. Eligible study participants were adequately informed about the study objectives, benefits and harms prior to voluntarily signing the consent forms, followed by administration of the questionnaires by the researcher. Socio-demographic characteristics were captured on locally designed instrument. Fully completed questionnaires were entered into excel sheets on the computer on the day data was collected by the researcher and later analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20. Results: More than half (51.1%) were male compared to (48.9%) females. The age distribution showed half (50%) of participants were adults aged 33 years and above who constituted (55.9%) of the study population and of whom, 36.3% were aged 32-22 years and (7.7% ) were aged 18-21 years. This finding showed that HIV infections in Kenya were predominantly among the resourceful newly married,young educated adults. Gender distribution difference was insignificant (2.2%) in the numbers by sex it was at (2%). The youngest participant was 18 years old implying that the mode of transmission in this population was sexual and or any other but unlikely to be mother to child.