THE IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION IN THE CREATION OF AWARENESS OF HIV/AIDS ON THE PEOPLE OF FOU TRADITIONAL AREA IN THE NORTHERN REGION

In recent times communication has been considered very integral in creating awareness of community members on the issues around HIV/AIDS. As such experts continue to use varied innovative ways of helping community members improved their knowledge on HIV/AIDS. This study was conducted to assess the impact of using communication to create HIV/AIDS awareness among the people of Fou Traditional Area in the Northern Region of Ghana. The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. Simple and purposive random sampling techniques were applied to obtain eligible participants. The data was analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Based on the results, all the respondents had ever heard about HIV/AIDS. About 22% respondents revealed that, they got to know of HIV/AIDS from community durbar. From the results, 65% respondents rated their knowledge on HIV/AIDS as poor. There was an association between the marital status of study participants sampled at the community and knowledge of how HIV/AIDS was spread (χ2 = 5.694, p= 0.040, α=0.05). From the results, 81% respondents indicated that, they were not satisfied in terms of how communication was used to create awareness on HIV/AIDS among the community members. Based on the results, knowledge of people on HIV/AIDS was low and communication was not effectively used to raise the awareness of the disease. The study recommended among others that education by healthcare workers on how people could improve their knowledge on HIV/AIDS should be intensified.