Abstract

The study examined the effectiveness of media-mix in disseminating HIV/AIDS information to rural communities in Abia State, Nigeria. Abia State is made up of three Geo-political Zones namely Abia North, Abia South, and Abia Central. From the three zones, two zones Abia North and Abia South were randomly selected and from these two zones, two Local Government Areas (LGAs) – Ohafia and Obingwa were purposively selected because they met the criteria for the study. From these LGAs, two communities Akanu-Ukwu and Mgboko-Amairi were also purposively selected and from these communities two villages, Abia for Akanu-Ukwu and Obete for Mgboko-Amairi were also selected. From each village, 50 respondents were randomly selected bringing the total to 100 respondents. Data were collected through well structured questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion and subsequently analyzed with the use of simple descriptive and inferential statistics. Major findings of the study indicated that majority (40%) of the respondents were still in their active and productive years. Respondents’ level of knowledge before intervention revealed that 42% of the respondents from Abia North had high knowledge of the epidemic, while 46% of the respondents from Abia South had high knowledge of the epidemic. The results also revealed a significant increase in the level of knowledge of the respondents after intervention. For Abia North, level of knowledge increased to 66 and 80% for Abia South. On effectiveness of the media-mix, the result indicated that the level of knowledge for Abia North increased from 42 to 66% indicating significant increase of 24% while that of Abia South increased from 46 to 80% indicating significant increase of 34%. The paper recommends, therefore, that media-mix should be used in HIV/AIDS educational campaign. This is necessary as message that is repeated many times perhaps with variables but with basic consistency becomes familiar and the people come to recognize and understand it without having to think.

Key words: Evaluation, media-mix, communities and Abia State.