3.7. SOME ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The study topic was conceptualized with the District Director
of Ghana health service of Kintampo District. Nevertheless the study subject
was thereafter actually put in mind of the District Assembly, all local
Traditional, Religious and other opinion leaders in order to co-opt their ideas
to ensure their consent, ownership and permission on the study.
All key informants and interviewees received explanations that
the study would be beneficial to the District in the sense that findings would
really help Kintampo District Health Authorities to implement a very effective
VCT/HIV PCT service in the near future.
Community entry was done through DHMT members and KHRC field
workers.
Autonomy of all key informants, interviewees and even
interviewers was respected. Respect of confidentiality was assured regarding
all information given by participants. The questionnaire was anonymous for
confidentiality purposes.
The research team members were kindly soliciting free
self-acceptance (voluntary participation) and informed consent of all
participants involved after explaining them the relevance of the study and the
role expected from them.
Freedom of refusing or abstaining from answering some
questions or of even withdrawing from an ongoing interview or discussion was
guaranteed for people who consented to participate. Consent from participants
was also sought regarding recording their voices and or taking their pictures
and using them in the study report. Thus pictures in this work received
prior verbal permission of concerned participants to be published as live
testimonies.
For some sensitive and intimate questions, like having ever
had sex, interviewers used polite introductive word like
«Sebi» to kindly beg respondents to freely consent not only
to answer but to just give right answers although the question directly touched
their intimacy.
3.8. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Some limitations in this study should be noted.
1. The exercise was originally conceived to have full district
coverage but because of resource constraints the study was limited only in 3 of
the 8 sub-districts of Kintampo District.
This may have led to no representativeness for the whole
district.
2. Focusing the study only among unmarried young adults
between 15-30 years might have been source of bias about perceptions towards
HIV PCT since it may generate a partial and selective picture rather than a
holistic one. This is of true value since unmarried young adult aged more than
30 years may perceive HIV PCT differently. Also married people, based on their
experiences and testimonies on marriage, whether or not they got married after
undergoing a HIV PCT session, also have a lot of information and strong
perception towards HIV PCT and that should have been normally taken into
account to give a wider picture on the matter. This last limitation was
partially solved in involving parents and old couples in FGD and IDI.
3. In order to reduce interviewer bias, most questions were
close-ended. This might have created loss of some important information which
may-be open-ended questions could have captured.
Nevertheless despite all these limitations, we hope results,
conclusions and recommendations from this study stand true and will help
Kintampo District Health Authorities as reference to plan for health
policy/programmes or further researches related to VCT and premarital
examination implementation.
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