Ghana, a sub-Saharan, West African country of almost 20 million people, has an
official HIV prevalence rate of 3.6%. Sub-Saharan Africa, with a mean prevalence
rate of 7.4% has just over 10% of the world’s population but is home to more
than 60% of all the estimated 25.4 million People Living With HIV and Aids (PLWHA)1.
The discrimination that HIV positive people face by health workers is documented
but is often difficult to measure2.
Pharmacists, more so in resource-poor nations, are often the
first point of call in an illness and certainly the last when medication is
prescribed. It is therefore important they have the right attitude towards HIV
positive clients so as to achieve the WHO "3 by 5" initiative which
aims to support resource-poor countries to rapidly achieve the target of three
million people on anti-retroviral treatment by the end of 2005 3.
Aim
To determine the degree of discrimination, if any, expressed by Ghanaian
pharmacists towards PLWHAs.
Method
A questionnaire was distributed to 250 pharmacists at a plenary meeting of
the 2004 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana (PSGH).
The indicators that were used in this study included four questions that were
applied in the 2003 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS)4 and
others that were gleaned from pertinent literature2. They required
only "Yes and No" answers. The four questions were: Are you willing to
care for an HIV positive family member in your own household? Should the HIV
positive status of a family member be kept a secret? Should an HIV positive
female teacher be allowed to continue to teach if she looks healthy? Would you
buy fresh vegetables from an HIV positive food vendor? The answers were analysed
using SPSS version 10 and compared with the results obtained in the 2003 GDHS.
Results
235 completed questionnaires were retrieved, giving a 94% response rate.
Only 17% (40 respondents) exhibited accepting attitudes towards PLWHAs, in that
they said that they would care for an HIV positive family member in their own
household, would not like it to remain a secret if a family member were HIV
positive, that an HIV positive female teacher should be allowed to continue
teaching and they would be willing to buy fresh vegetables from a known HIV
positive person.
Discussion
Results from the 2003 GDHS indicated that fewer than 10% of women and 14% of
men express accepting attitudes on all four measures. In this regard, Ghanaian
pharmacists have better accepting attitudes than the general populace; however,
it is noted that if pharmacists are perceived to be in the highest wealth
quintile, have a tertiary education, most are from the urban, Greater Accra
region; then the score indicates that they likely have poorer accepting
attitudes than Ghanaians with similar backgrounds. These results need to be
investigated further as they have far-reaching policy implications for achieving
the WHO 3X5 initiative.
References
