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Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #24500] Tue, 24 May 2022 15:57 Go to next message
Shatho K is currently offline  Shatho K
Messages: 4
Registered: May 2022
Member
Good day

Please advise, am currently doing my thesis which will focus on analysing the level of HIV prevention awareness among school-going children. The outcome variable "level of awareness" is computed by scoring 1 for each 'correct' answer and a score of 0 for the 'incorrect' answer then summing up the scores.Now the hick-up am facing is that through literature I can't find a standard cut off on the level of awareness (or knowledge) so I focused on DHS data since there are questions on Comprehensive Knowledge of HIV prevention and I still can't figure it out (cut-off)out from the manuals. Can you kindly advise on how the level of Comprehensive knowledge was calculated and the cut off used to determine that level

Kind Regards
Re: Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #24529 is a reply to message #24500] Thu, 26 May 2022 16:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Janet-DHS is currently offline  Janet-DHS
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Registered: April 2022
Senior Member
Following is response from DHS Research & Data Analysis Director, Tom Pullum:

I need something more specific about what you are referring to. Is there a specific DHS report, and a table in that report, that includes this index of Comprehensive HIV Knowledge? I can then look up how the index was constructed from the individual items.
Re: Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #24535 is a reply to message #24529] Fri, 27 May 2022 08:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shatho K is currently offline  Shatho K
Messages: 4
Registered: May 2022
Member
Hi Janet,

Since Botswana has no report i will use a report from data collected in the Lesotho 2014 DHS as an example available at https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR309/FR309.pdf, From this realised that Comprehensive HIV knowledge being defined as on the report on page 193 "composite measure and indicates that an individual knows that both consistent condom use and limiting sexual intercourse to one uninfected partner can prevent HIV, and that a healthy-looking person can have HIV, and rejects the two most common local misconceptions about the transmission of HIV, which in Lesotho are that HIV can be transmitted through mosquitoes and that a person can become infected with HIV by sharing food with a person who has AIDS" so in this case when you assign 1 to correct answer and 0 to incorrect...what is the cut off recommended if you wasn't to assess level of comprehensive knowledge for an individual .
Re: Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #24541 is a reply to message #24535] Fri, 27 May 2022 13:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Janet-DHS is currently offline  Janet-DHS
Messages: 899
Registered: April 2022
Senior Member
Following is response from DHS Research & Data Analysis Director, Tom Pullum:

I will describe the construction of this variable in terms of the women's (IR) file for this survey and Stata. First you have to find the relevant variables. Here they are, in terms of the "describe" command and what it produces:

. describe v754cp v754dp v756 v754jp v754wp

storage display value
variable name type format label variable label
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ---
v754cp byte %8.0g V754CP reduce risk of getting hiv: always use condoms during sex
v754dp byte %8.0g V754DP reduce risk of getting hiv: have 1 sex partner only, who has no other partners
v756 byte %8.0g V756 a healthy looking person can have hiv
v754jp byte %8.0g V754JP can get hiv from mosquito bites
v754wp byte %8.0g V754WP can get hiv by sharing food with person who has aids

You could find the exact wording of the questions in the questionnaire, which is included in an appendix. Then you have to find the codes for these five variables. They are all coded the same way, like this:

. label list V754CP
V754CP:
0 no
1 yes
8 don't know

Then, to match table 12.3.1 in the report, the variable is constructed with these two lines:

gen comp_know=0
replace comp_know=1 if v754cp==1 & v754dp==1 & v756==1 & v754jp==0 & v754wp==0

To confirm that this matches the table, do this:

. tab comp_know [iweight=v005/1000000]

comp_know | Freq. Percent Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
0 | 4,069.3388 61.46 61.46
1 | 2,551.6612 38.54 100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
Total | 6,620.9999 100.00

This gives the number of cases (6621) and the relevant percentage in the bottom row of the table (38.5%).

I believe you were thinking that you would add up 1's and 0's and get a total, and then find a cutoff for that table. This variable has a more complicated definition. You have to specify that the first three components are exactly 1 and the last two are exactly 0. You can't construct it just with addition.
Re: Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #24542 is a reply to message #24541] Fri, 27 May 2022 17:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shatho K is currently offline  Shatho K
Messages: 4
Registered: May 2022
Member
your last statement is correct about my intention. Thank you so much for the clarification though il ponder more on the issue
Re: Comprehensive HIV Knowledge [message #25078 is a reply to message #24542] Mon, 29 August 2022 02:49 Go to previous message
Shatho K is currently offline  Shatho K
Messages: 4
Registered: May 2022
Member
Hello again...

Where can I get literature on why the comprehensive HIV/AIDS indicator's cut off is 100% = a person has comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge (knowing all the prevention methods and discarding 2 misconceptions), and anything below that is not comprehensive HIV/AIDS knowledge. I tried reading through the guide but there is nothing which shows what led to that final agreement on why that cut off is used.
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