The world has entered the third decade of the HIV and AIDS epidemic under different times in which the epidemic is treatable. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2005) declares HIV and AIDS a developmental crisis destroying developmental gains over generations. Since HIV and AIDS affect the most productive segment of the labour force, it is therefore not only a threat to development but also to the world of work without which development will be sacrificed (ILO, 2001). Collaborative response efforts that seek to mitigate the HIV pandemic by government, business and higher education institutions have been fraught with challenges. The main challenge that beset these efforts is that, in the absence of an HIV vaccine, voluntary counselling and testing remains the gateway to access treatment and care. Regrettably, participation in VCT has been confronted by challenges of low utilisation. This precedes the objectives of this study, which were to explore and describe factors that serve as barriers and facilitators of workplace VCT programmes with the objective to improve participation in these programmes. The current study was a product of a qualitative and exploratory-descriptive research design. A nonprobability convenience sampling method was used to sample participants for this study. The targeted population in this study were the non-academic employees of an academic institution in the Eastern Cape. Data was collected by means of focus group discussions and by using semi-structured interviews. The focus group samples comprised of an equal number of men and women with an overall participation of fifty-six participants. Data obtained was transcribed, thematically analysed and coded using Henning, Van Rensburg, and Smit's (2004) qualitative analysis and interpretation method. Findings of this research revealed that factors that facilitate and inhibit voluntary counselling and testing are psychosocial and cultural by nature. At psychosocial level, participants reported factors that facilitate voluntary counselling and testing to include psychological readiness to go for HIV testing, reassurances of confidentiality of HIV test results and normalising HIV testing (making the process more like that for screening and diagnostic testing). Cultural factors included cultural practices and beliefs such as "intonjane" and traditional circumcision - positive cultural nurturers that could facilitate VCT participation. Results of this study showed a lack of basic knowledge about VCT and fear of knowing one's status, fear of breach of confidentiality, fear of being stigmatised and a lack of trust towards health professional as the major psychosocial factors that serve as barriers to VCT participation. The cultural barriers to VCT pointed to hegemonic masculinity as a socially constructed gender identity that encourages gender inequalities and undermines efforts to improve HIV testing. The study suggested that strategies to increase VCT participation should consider leadership support of VCT programmes, incentivisation of VCT programmes, institutionalisation of HIV and AIDS education and the establishment of integrated wellness services for employees.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:9428 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Jusayo, Nomonde |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | xii, 152 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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