Abstract

By the end of 2012 about 1 2 million Kenyans were living with the HIV virus which is expected to reach 1 8 million by 2015 mainly due to new infections The age bracket 15-24 years provided opportunity for interventions such as peer education to prevent new infections and save future generations from the scourge The aim of this study was to determine the difference between peer education club members beneficiaries and non-members non-beneficiaries in terms of behaviour change indicators including abstinence faithfulness to a partner condom use and HIV testing The study covered eight public secondary schools in Rachuonyo County where peer education clubs had been operational for two years The static group comparison design was applied to guide the research process and primary data sourced from 260 beneficiaries and 212 non-beneficiaries Club membership and class registers were used to develop sampling frames for beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries respectively Systematic random sampling procedure was applied to select participants and Fisher s formula used to determine sample sizes Quantitative analysis techniques included cross-tabulations with Chi square statistic beta co-efficients and odds ratios Exp The study found that 27 10 4 beneficiaries and 8 3 8 non-beneficiaries were not sexually active hence were likely to be practicing abstinence Controlling for gender age religion orphan hood status and schooling consistency the odds ratios indicated that beneficiaries had about 2 6 times the odds of practicing abstinence as non-beneficiaries 0 946 SE 0 189 CI 1 78-3 73 beneficiaries were about 3 3 times as likely to practice faithfulness to an uninfected partner as non-beneficiaries 1 197 SE 0 272 CI 1 94-5 64 Furthermore beneficiaries had about 2 6 times the odds of using condoms consistently as non-beneficiaries 0 969 SE 0 186 CI 1 83-3 78 and regarding HIV testing beneficia