Attachments
- Ursula Wüthrich-Grossenbacher,
- Nicholas Midzi,
- Masceline Jenipher Mutsaka-Makuvaza &
- Abigail Mutsinze
BMC Public Health volume 23, Article number: 2170 (2023)
Introduction
Background
According to UNICEF, Zimbabwe has an adult Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevalence rate of 11.58%, corresponding to about 1.3 million Zimbabweans living with HIV. Of those, 77,300 are adolescents aged 10–19. Females aged 15–29 years have the highest HIV rate [1]. Alarmingly, the Zimbabwe 2015 Demographic Health Survey recorded an increase in risk behaviors after 2010 including having sex with non-regular partners, having multiple sexual partnerships, and encounters with sex workers [2]. Thus, to reach the Sustainable Development Goal 3 [3] target of ending the epidemic of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) by 2030, new prevention and care approaches are needed to combat current trends and better support young people living with HIV (YPLHIV) in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is a highly religious country. 84% of the population aged 15 years and above are Christians. The largest proportion of Christians belong to the Apostolic Sect. (34%), followed by Pentecostals (20%), and Protestants (16%). Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and New Religious Movements are minority groups in Zimbabwe [4]. Furthermore, according to Chitando, every African is born into African Traditional Religions and that influences the way Zimbabweans practice religion [5]. Besides, since around 2009, Zimbabwe has witnessed a surge of Christian preachers who call themselves prophets or prophetesses. They claim to be mediators between God and ordinary people, and profess to work miracles, including healings [6]. Many Zimbabweans freely combine or move between traditional religion and different Christian churches, including prophet led churches. Health and illness are not only understood as physical phenomena but seen and understood in that traditional and religious context. Thus, illness may have physical, mental, social, spiritual, and supernatural causes. This is true for all African ethnic groups in Zimbabwe (Shona 82%, Ndebele 14%, others). Many studies describe the important influence of traditional and religious practices and beliefs on health seeking behaviour, suggesting that religion and tradition could play an important role in providing additional support structures that facilitate treatment adherence. However, most of these studies are qualitative in nature, or based on descriptive statistics. Given the significant gap in our empirical knowledge, it is unsurprising that UNICEF called for future studies to apply multi-level logistic regression to test and reveal the strengths of different causes [7].