INTRODUCTION
Managing information is an important part of coping with illness and includes communicative and cognitive activities seeking, avoiding, providing, appraising, and interpreting information. It is complex in that people’s information needs and behavior vary over the course of their illness and along with the availability and quality of information. In recent years, considerable research has been done on how people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (PLWHIV/AIDS) manage information. However, understanding of the role of information in the HIV/AIDS in ESUT Teaching Hospital, Park lane is still limited, because of the difficulties of reaching different groups of PLWHA.
This study has been designed to reach many segments of the diverse HIV/AIDS community and broaden under standing of how information can better assist PLWHA.
Information can be regarded as a resource that can liberate man. Osuala (2001) refers to information as facts and opinions provided and received during the course of life. A person using such facts generate more information some of which is communicate to others during discussion, by letters, symbols, etc. Aniogbolu, (2008) noted that most information users need information for problem solving, current awareness and recreational purpose. According to Aniogbolu (2008), the importance of information utilization by man to his development is becoming more meaningful to him as his information accumulation ability’s is taking a new dimension with the development of highly sophisticated information technology (Aniogbolu, Anyaobi & Olise, 2010).
Information needs is often understood as vague awareness of something missing and culminating in locating information that contributes to understanding and meaning (Kuhlthau, 2009). Belkin, Brooks and Oddy. (2008) in their part saw information needs as a gap in individual’s knowledge in sense making situations. Accessibility to the right information is necessary for the general well being of the individual, institution or organization.
One of the most devastating sources of our time is HIV/AIDS; undoubtedly HIV/AIDS presents a major challenge to human development in Nigeria. Ojoawo, (2006) apart from poverty, no problem has given Nigeria a more daunting challenge than the present battle with HIV/AIDS. AIDS in indeed devastating Nigerian communities and poses a real threat to poverty reduction effort and the achievement of the United Nation Millennium Development Goals, (UNMDG). Indeed HIV/AIDS presents a serious challenge to Human Development in Nigeria because the exact cause of and spread of the epidemic is still very difficult to calculate.
In Nigeria, the first case of AIDS was diagnosed in 1986. The infection rate has however, grown exponentially. Since then, by June 1999, the Federal Ministry of Health, (FMOH) in Nigeria had recorded 26,276 AIDS cases. Due to fear of stigmatization several cases are not reported through the hospitals, which mean the reported cases were gross under estimations of the rate of occurrence of the epidemic. The National AIDS/STDS Control Progremmes (NASCP) of FMOH estimated that the calculated number of AIDS cases would have reached 590,000 by the end of 1999 (Ojoawo, 2006).
Currently Nigeria has become the first country in Africa to cross the critical epidemiological threshold of 5%. In fact, it has since been projected that by the 2009 in the absence of major changes in sexual behavior and other control measures, the number of people living with HIV would reach 5 million, of the 40 million people identified to be living with the disease, 3.5 million is the estimated number for Nigerian. This amounts to 10% of the 40 million people infected worldwide (UNAIDS/WHO/UNICEF, 2002). In a country like Nigeria, with limited public capacity and resources to combat the problem, the prevalence rate is 80 high that the HIV virus is infecting more than 30 people a day, and the disease is growing faster that the authorities’ response to it. The prevalence report in Nigeria revealed that there is no community in Nigeria with zero prevalence (FMOH, 2009).
Ukwuoma (2008) noted that in 2003 and 2008 National Antenatal HIV Seroprevalence survey in Enugu State recorded the prevalence rate in both 2003 and 2008 as 4.9% and 5.1% respectively.
People living with HIV/AIDS need information to survive. As a matter of fact, information is vital in the daily life of the people living with HIV/AIDS.
It is a medium of social transformation and communication and an avenue for them (people living with HIV/AIDS) to get involved in government programmes and policies about HIV/AIDS. Therefore, good access to information becomes a must for PLWHA. It is therefore, necessary to consider the information needs of people living with HIV/AIDS as well as their information resources. This study sought to investigate the information needs and resource utilization by PLWHA. Using ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu as study setting.
ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu is situated at GRA Enugu North Local Government. It is a reference center for comprehensive treatment and support of people living with HIV/AIDS.
The cause of the disease HIV/AIDS, allover the world, relates to individual social behavior such as casual sex, intra venous drugs use (FMOH, 2008). In Nigeria however, the leading driving force of the spread of the HIV infection includes low level of education, high level of ignorance, cultural practices that encourage multiple sexual partner such as polygamy and concubine, poverty and lack of access to appropriate reproductive health survives and information particularly the illiterate and young people. The practice of traditional surgery such as bloodletting procedures with unsterilized instrument on infertile women, and non observance of infection control procedures by traditional birth attendants who are heavily patronized in Nigeria, may all be responsible for spread of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.
Other factors blamed for the spread of the epidemic are the other cultural practices that expose people to unsterilized sharp objects used for body scarification and circumcision, the subordinate role of women and their attendant vulnerability which prevents them from negotiating safe sex, ignorance, stigma and discrimination, poverty, illiteracy and the non chalant attitude of some individuals.
In spite of various efforts at both domestic and international levels, Nigeria’s situation seems not to translate to any reliable cheering news about HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is becoming more of a developmental problem than just a health problem. The problem constitutes a major challenge to sustainable human development in Nigeria, which must be a concern for all.
Lack of information resources, lack of awareness of the existence of information resources by the people living with HIV/AIDS, Non-utilization of the available resources by the people living with HIV/AIDS, High level of illiteracy among people living with HIV/AIDS, lack of skilled man power to appropriately organize that available resources in ESUT Teaching Hospital Library for easy accessibility and retrieval by people living with HIV/AIDS are the major problems faced by the PLWHA in ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu.
This study focuses on the information needs and resource utilization by people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). The case study is ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu. The following are the problems facing PLWHA
Around the world too there have been numerous instances of HIV/AIDS related cases of discrimination. People with HIV or those believed to have HIV/AIDS have been:
In conclusion therefore, continuous advocacy campaigns are needed in response to the challenges faced by PLWHA and to bring about social change. All hand must be on desk to tackle the challenges facing PLWHA. To win the war against HIV/AIDS, PLWHA must be used as agents of change in the society.
The main purpose of this study is to depict a comprehensive picture of information need and resource utilization by people living with HIV/AIDS in ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu. The specific purposes of the study are as follows:
This study is limited to ESUT Teaching Hospital Park lane, Enugu, it investigates the information needs and resources utilization by people living with HIV/AIDS. The research wants to measure the following variables: the areas in which people living with HIV/AIDS need information, the extent to which information resources encourage and support the people living with HIV/AIDS, to take positive actions to deal with the HIV/AIDS, the information resources used by PLWHA, the benefits derived from the use of information resources by the PLWHA, and the barriers to access and utilization of information resources by PLWHA.