SOURCE:

Faculty: Education
Department: Adult Education

CONTRIBUTORS:

Obiozor, O.R
Ugwoegbu, I.T

ABSTRACT:

Human Immune Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is currently one of the most devastating conditions affecting millions of people worldwide. The increase in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly Nigeria has resulted to the adoption of Non-formal education (NFE) programmes in order to deal with socio-psychological problems of HIV/AIDS. The main purpose of this study was to assess the implementation of NFE programmes for minimizing socio-psychological problems of adults living with HIV/AIDS in Southeast, Nigeria. The study was guided by five research questions while five null hypotheses were tested. Descriptive survey research design was adopted and the population of the study comprised 8,187 (8,130 infected adults and 57 HAART Centre programme facilitators) from the five federal hospitals. A sample size of 1,010 infected adults and 33 HAART centre programme facilitators were selected through purposive sampling technique. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The instrument was validated by four experts and their corrections were adopted. The reliability of the instrument was ascertained using Cronbach’s Alpha. Data were analyzed using the arithmetic mean to answer the research questions and z test for testing the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings show that the respondents perceived the extent of implementation of awareness and enlightenment, counseling and health education programmes to be high and there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of the respondents based on status (infected adults and the HAART Centre facilitators) with respect to implementation of all the non-formal education programmes. However, it was found that community mobilization and civic education programmes were implemented to a low extent. Based on the findings, implications were drawn and recommendations made which include that programme providers should re-orient media practitioners to re-focus on community mobilization programmes. Faith based organizations should also cancel the current policy of compulsory HIV/AIDS test for intended couples.