Factors influencing implementation of health promotion guidelines for families with adolescents orphaned by HIV and AIDS

Abstract

South Africa was rated among the sub-Saharan countries that failed to prioritise basic focused HIV prevention programmes to combat the new HIV infections across their borders (UNAIDS, 2009). It is therefore essential to re-engineer the HIV prevention programmes through the implementation of health promotion guidelines developed in this study in order to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS. This study was designed to explore and describe the factors influencing the implementation of health promotion guidelines in the rural Hammanskraal region of the North West Province, South Africa. This study focuses on the implementation of the guidelines that were developed as part of the main study. The study was qualitative in nature, following the explorative, descriptive and contextual design. Data were collected through two focus group discussions involving 10 purposively selected participants, which assisted the researcher to explore the research question and describe the factors as they unfolded during the interaction with participants. The transcribed data were analysed using the steps suggested in the Tesch’s method of data analysis. The four themes identified as factors influencing implementation of health promotion guidelines were: information, door-to-door campaigns, resources and culture. The study concluded that a successful health promotion programme requires effective strategies that concentrate on strengthening existing programme implementation among the adults and youth in order to address the cultural barriers which are impediments to the successful delivery of the programme.