Purpose: Adolescents and youth living with HIV/AIDs experience numerous challenges and support needs, some of which occur in school and affect their quality of life. Several reasons have been advanced to explain this trend includes; stigma, peer pressure and discrimination. However, little focus has been made on socio-cultural, socioeconomic and clinical challenges facing Adolescents and Youth Living with HIV/AIDS (AYLHIV). The objective of this study was to assess the challenges influencing access to comprehensive HIV care among adolescents and youth aged 15-24 years at Nakuru county referral hospital in Kenya.Methodology: Adopting social cognitive theory, a descriptive survey research design was used. Purposive and proportionate random sampling techniques were used to obtain a sample size of 47 AYLHIV. Questionnaires and focused group discussions were used to collect data from AYLHIV; while Interview schedules were to collect data from counsellors in November 2019. Data were analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics in January 2020.Findings: The study concludes that the main socio-cultural challenges faced by AYLWA at County Referral Hospitals are stigma and frequent change of caregivers resulting in poor adherence to ARV medications. Moreover, no major socio-economic challenges were affecting AYLWA at the health facilities. Further, the main clinical challenges facing AYLWA were poor adherence and low viral suppression.Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study recommends the need to offer and strengthen psychosocial support to AYLWA to enable them to cope with their status and educate the caregivers on the importance of the AYLWA having a consistent caregiver for continuity. The hospital management should avail more trained adherence counsellors for this role. Moreover, the hospital management needs to strengthen the Youth Friendly HIV services to improve responsiveness to the youth needs. This will enhance peer support.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of senior management training on transfer of learning among public officers trained by Kenya school of Government by establishing whether training interventions yield corresponding increase in the level of trainees' knowledge, skills and attitude. F-test was used to find out whether there was any variance within the pretest and posttest samples, paired sample t-test and analysis of variance was used to statistically determine significant difference between posttest and pretest mean scores of 197 trainees who attended senior management course offered at Kenya School of Government in Kenya sampled through single stage cluster sampling technique. The study concluded that mean scores of the posttest trainee's knowledge level and application/use were different from the mean scores of the trainee pretest scores suggesting a change in the trainees' level of knowledge and applicability of the training to trainees' work following the training intervention. Furthermore, the scores showed a positive change from the pretest to posttest. Nonetheless, it was noted that trainee's perception of how important it is to learn a specific set of skills (attitude) does not change even after training intervention is administered. The study provides training effectiveness roadmap for Kenya school of Government to address assessment gap noted and provides an empirical rationale for Governments and corporate organizations to commit and make major investments on training of their employees as a useful way of staff capacity building towards enhanced employee performance.
<p>The global pandemic of Covid-19 created dramatic challenges for governments worldwide. It led to skyrocketing numbers of deaths and outbreaks, challenged the public and private health systems of many countries and brought many national economies to a halt. Kenya was not an exception and like other countries used a number of strategies to combat the epidemic but equally suffered the same fate. There is little empirical evidence to determine whether the strategies, especially by the county governments were effective in handling the Covid-19 pandemic. Thereby lies the knowledge gap that this study seeks to answer. It is against this background that this study sought to assess the extent to which medical equipment and supplies, personnel and funding influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic by county governments in Kenya. The general objective guiding the study was, to assess the factors influencing the management of the Covid-19 pandemic among county governments in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were: To determine the extent to which medical equipment and supplies influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments, to determine the extent to which the use of personnel resources influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments and to determine the extent to which funding influenced the management of Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments. Fink's crisis management model guided the study, which reviewed the empirical literature on medical equipment and supplies, personnel resources and funding in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design with a target population of 70,500 employees from the health sector. The research used simple random sampling as a sampling technique and a sample size of 100 respondents was selected using the Yamane formula. Data was collected using questionnaires. The data were subjected to descriptive statistics and analyzed using SPSS. Based on the findings, 79.6% of the respondents agreed that medical equipment and supplies greatly influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments, 85% of the respondents indicated that personnel resources played a critical role in the management of Covid-19 pandemic among the counties and 74.2% of the respondents agreed that funding greatly influenced management of Covid-19 pandemic in county governments. Based on the findings, the study recommended that a staff audit and workload analysis should be undertaken and a recruitment process initiated to improve staffing levels; an audit of bed capacity of all medical facilities be initiated and a procurement plan for the acquisition of additional beds based on needs undertaken; an audit and analysis of staff training be undertaken to identify training gaps and necessary action initiated; negotiate with SRC on additional medical staff allowances and lastly fast-track legislation on the expenditure of emergency funds.</p><p> </p><p><strong>JEL</strong>: H10; H51; H76; I10; I18</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0959/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
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