Factors Associated With Uptake Of Safe Male Circumcision Among Male Clients Aged 15-49 Years Attending The Outpatient Clinic At Mukono Church Of Uganda Hospital –mukono District .

Abstract

Back ground: Safe male circumcision is believed to be associated with reduced HIV prevalence, yet it‟s uptake in Ugandan is still low. If well embraced and adopted widely, Safe Male Circumcision (SMC) can reduce new HIV infections by 60% (WHO, 2013). The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors influencing the uptake of Safe male circumcision amongst males aged 15-49 years in outpatients‟ clinic at Mukono Church of Uganda hospital, Mukono district.

Methods: This was a cross sectional study that was carried out 384 males aged 15-49 years. Data on uptake of safe male circumcision and factors associated with its uptake was collected using researcher-administered questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using Graph pad prism 7 software and Pearson chi square tests were used to assess the relationship between the socio demographic and personal factors with uptake of voluntary medical male circumcision. All statistical tests were 2-tailed and P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results: In this study, 159 (41.4%) of the respondents reported to have undertaken safe male circumcision. Except religion, all the socio demographic factors had a statistically significant relationship with uptake of safe male circumcision (P < 0.05). Among the personal factors, awareness and perception about SMC significantly affected the uptake of SMC, however distance from health facility never impacted on the uptake of SMC (P =0.236).

Conclusions and recommendations: The uptake of SMC among the male clients was relatively low. It is recommended that rigorous community awareness about SMC programs should be done improve community knowledge and perceptions in order to scale up safe male circumcision.