13 / 20
Page 48
conferenceseries
.com
Volume 8, Issue 9 (Suppl)
J AIDS Clin Res
ISSN: 2155-6113 JAR, an open access journal
STD Asia Pacific 2017
October 23-25, 2017
OCTOBER 23-25, 2017 OSAKA, JAPAN
7
TH
ASIA PACIFIC
STD and Infectious Diseases Congress
J AIDS Clin Res 2017, 8:9 (Suppl)
DOI: 10.4172/2155-6113-C1-021
People living with HIV, social capital and health related quality of life
Tolbert Mucheri and Johannes John-Langba
University of Cape Town, South Africa
P
eople Living with HIV (PLHIV) face unique challenges depending on their location, gender and age group. Despite
recognized advancements made in suppressive medication and remarkable achievements by governments to ensure
universal access to HIV-related medication mortalities remain high. Optimal usage of medication and adherence remain sub
optimal especially in rural communities. To what extent is social capital as an endogenous enabling factor explains disparities
in healthcare utilization?. Previous scholars have explored diverse economic benefits of social capital but limited empirical
evidence exist to support the role of social capital in healthcare utilization especially amongst marginalized groups of people
such as PLHIV. Grounded on the Andersen and Newman model of healthcare utilization and social capital theory, the study
employed a mixed method research design. A total of 399 adult PLHIV were reached through time-location sampling and
interviewed using a survey questionnaire in rural Zimbabwe. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were also conducted with
40 purposively selected key informants that included healthcare workers, HIV/AIDS service providers and community leaders.
A statistically significant association was found between social capital and healthcare utilization. The binary logistic regression
model was statistically significant, χ2 (11)=129.362, (p<0.005), it correctly classified 80.20% of cases and explained 59.3% of
the variance in healthcare utilization (Nagelkerke R-Square=59.30%). Social capital was a significant predictor of HIV/AIDS-
related healthcare utilization (p<0.001). The results indicated that strong social capital increased the odds of utilization of
HIV/AIDS-related healthcare a factor of 59.84. Gender (p<0.05, odds ratio=3.4), discrimination (p<0.05, odds ratio=7.7) and
household headship (p<0.001, odds ratio=4.3) were other significant predictors of healthcare utilization. Recommendations
are made to integrate social capital in designing interventions and policies to improve HIV-related healthcare utilization in
rural context.
tolbertmucheri@yahoo.com