Home Based Care for People Living With HIV/AIDS;\ud Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice among\ud Family Care Givers at Ukonga Ward in Ilala District

For many AIDS patients in low income countries such as African countries (Tanzania), hospital care is not always affordable or accessible and home-based care services rarely exist as a solution for meeting needs of PLWHA. To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of home based care among family care givers for PLWHA. Study was conducted at Ukonga ward in Ilala District, Dar es Salaam with family care givers who accepted to participate in the study. A cross sectional descriptive study Convenience sampling was used in recruiting the family care givers who had ever provided or were at that time roviding care to PLWHA at Ukonga ward. 103 Family Care givers participated in this study; 73(71%) were female and 30(29%) were male. The mean age of participants was 38 years. The study revealed that 17% believed that they were knowledgeable, 65(63%) had inadequate knowledge and 21( 20%) had no knowledge whatsoever of HBC for PLWHA. The relationship of believed knowledge and hospital re- dmission of PLWHA was not statistically supported (P < 0.001, P=0.0096 and P= 0.0206 for those who believed that were knowledgeable, had less knowledge and had no knowledge respectively). 86(83%) reported that home is a better place than hospital in caring for PLWHA, and the relationship with hospital HOME BASED CARE FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS; ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, TTITUDE AND PRACTICE AMONG FAMILY CARE GIVERS AT UKONGA WARD IN ILALA DISTRICT MALALE, KIJA (BScN 4) re-admission was not signifi cance supported (P=0.2629), 55(53%) reported to have had good practice of Home-Based Care for their patients. The relationship of poor practice of Home Based Care and hospital re-admission of PLWHA was statistically not supported (P=0.61762). The study ighlighted that majority of family care givers believed they had inadequate knowledge, had a good attitude and practice of the HBC provision. Therefore HBC Training is important for family members who are taking care of their relatives living with HIV/AIDS and further studies should be conducted in order to explore reasons as to why there is prevalence of hospital re-admission among PLWHA in developing untries like Tanzania