Abstract:
Background: Comprehension is one of the essential elements in truly informed consent.
Maximizing comprehension is a major challenge for informed consent processes within an
education difference and resource-limited settings. Comprehension with the informed consent
process was found to be markedly lower among persons with lower educational levels.
Tanzania is one among the underdeveloped countries, challenged by low education and
poverty. So these make a doubt on Comprehension of informed consent process of treatment
among HIV and AIDS patients.
Objective: This study aimed at assessing level of comprehension of informed consent process
for treatment among people living with HIV and AIDS.
Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study carried out from March to June 2017 at
Mwananyamala hospital. Random sampling technique was employed to select 75participants
among people living with HIV and AIDS. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Data
analysis was done using SPSS version 20+ to analyze dependent and independent variables
which included descriptive statistics for frequency and tables. Fishers’ exact test used for
showing associations between study variables during statistical analysis. P-value of < 0.05 was
considered statistically significant.
Results: Out of the 75 patients 50.7% have good comprehension while 38.7% had poor
comprehension of treatment preliminary information of informed consent. Of the 75 patients
96% comprehended the purpose(s) of their treatment. More than half (61.3%) of patients did
not know the risk while 54.7% did not know voluntariness of their treatment. A significant
association between level of education, sources of information and gender with patients’
comprehension was observed (p<0.05). There was no association between patients’
comprehension with age. Conclusion: The study clearly indicated that, level of comprehension of informed consent towards
treatment preliminary information among People living with HIV and AIDS is poor, especially
for female. Their lack of adequate sources of information towards treatment on informed
consent was associated with lower level of formal education. All above factors affect greatly
51.2% of female comprehension of informed consent towards treatment. Therefore, more than
half of female consent is not meaningful.
