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Sexually transmitted infections: Knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of youth in a mining community, a focus group discussion study of obuasi municipality of Ghana
Joint Event on 3rd International Conference on Infection, Disease Control and Prevention & 2nd International Conference on Microbial Pathogenesis & Infectious Diseases
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain a public health problem globally with youth disproportionately affected by the
epidemic. Furthermore, high prevalence of STIs have been linked with mining communities in the literature. The combined effect
of being young and resident in a mining community therefore increases the vulnerability of this population to STIs. It is against this
background that the study seeks to ascertain the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of STIs among youth in the Obuasi mining
community. Using a qualitative approach, five focus group discussions that recruited 52 participants aged 15-24 years were conducted.
The main themes for the FGDs were knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes on STIs. Results from the study revealed that youth in
the mining community had fair knowledge of STIs generally, however, this knowledge is limited and fraught with misconceptions
such as, candidiasis is an example of STI, oral contraceptives can prevent STIs, and all STIs are viral infections. It was also found
that condom use is a preferable STI prevention method for the youth, yet they do not have extensive knowledge about condom use.
Moreover, stigma, shame and unavailability of testing and treatment centers at the community level are major barriers to youth sexual
health improvement and STIs control generally. Since behavior change which is influenced by knowledge, attitudes and perceptions
is vital to the fight against STIs among the youth, any future interventions for STIs should include or better still target increasing STI
knowledge, and improving attitude of youth in mining communities.
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