Knowledge, Perception and Acceptance of Couple HIV Counselling and Testing in a Rural Community in Nigeria

HIV Prevalence is still high in Nigeria and Mother to Child transmission of HIV is another burden on HIV positive sero concordance or discordance couples. The Couple HIV Counselling and Testing program (CHCT) was designed to assist in the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV as a way of fighting against the dreaded HIV epidemics. There are no documented evidence on uptake and acceptance of this service among couples in Nigeria. Th is study therefore present finding from a household survey aimed at providing insight into people’s perception and acceptance of the CHCT in Nigeria. Adopting the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling Technique (LQAS), data was collected from 76 married men and women liv ing in Kubwa, a rural community within the Nigeria Federal Capital Territory, by personal interview using structured Questionnaire. Filled questionnaires were entered into SPSS and analysis was performed. Findings showed that about 76.3% of the respondents have ever heard of Couple Counselling and Testing while about 60% have ever accessed CHCT. Almost all the respondents were willing to recommend CHCT to newly married or intending couples and about 30% perceived it as a way to promote faithfulness and trust between couples. To assess CHCT, most respondents preferred private hospitals to public health facilit ies. This study concludes that awareness of CHCT is fair and response is high among married men and women in the selected community.