Construction of HIV Prevention Concepts Among Batswana Pentecostal Youth: A Concept Mapping Approach

PRESENTATION TYPE: Individual Poster

CATEGORY/THEME: Application of Research Design and Methods for Optimizing

Prevention Science

TITLE: Construction of HIV Prevention Concepts among Batswana Pentecostal Youth: A

Concept Mapping Approach

ABSTRACT BODY:

Introduction: Past research has shown an interest by faith-based organizations (FBOs) in most emerging countries and elsewhere in HIV prevention intervention that prioritize religious aspects of being. Effective partnerships between the public health sectors and FBOs would require enhanced understanding of the conceptual construction of HIV prevention by FBOs to emphasize for prevention intervention, those concepts church youth would endorse.This study reports on the state- of -art approach concept mapping approaches used to examine conceptual construction of HIV prevention among Pentecostal church youths in Botswana, a nation with one of highest HIV prevalence in the world.

Methods: Participants were 213 Pentecostal Church youth (67% female; age range 12 to 23 years; median age =19 years). They reported on their implicit construction of HIV prevention concepts, in view of important faith concepts to them. Self report data were analysed using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) to map the ways the church youths constructed HIV prevention.

Results: The findings suggest the church youth to conceptually construct their HIV prevention from both faith-oriented and secular-oriented perspectives. While the youth prioritized the faith-oriented concepts based on biblical teachings, they also endorsed the importance of community health norms and a focus of long term life goals. The youth underemphasized the importance to learn the facts about HIV and AIDS to preventing them from contracting HIV.

Conclusions: A prospective HIV prevention intervention with the Pentecostal church youths would consider both faith and secular informed concepts. It would also need to consider ways in which these youth interpret secular-oriented health concepts in the context of their religious beliefs.

Keywords: Botswana, Faith concepts, HIV prevention, Pentecostal, Church, Religion