EFFECTIVENESS OF COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPIES IN REDUCING ANXIETY AND FEAR OF STIGMATIZATION TOWARDS VOLUNTARY HIV COUNSELLING AND TESTING AMONG UNIVERSITY OF BENIN UNDERGRADUATES.
ABSTRACT
The study was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of cogntive behavioral therapies (CBTs) in reducing anxiety and fear of stigmatization towards voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) among undergraduates of the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria. This is with a view to getting
students to free their minds and go for HIV counseling and testing. The broader vision is to synthesize the implications of the findings for guidance and counseling in the area of HIV/AIDS VCT in Edo State.
To achieve this, a ten percent systematic random sampling procedure was used to select five departments with a student population of five hundred and eight (508) from fifty two (52) departments having a 100 Level fulltime student population of five thousand two hundred and eighty three (5283). The five hundred and eight students were pretested using a valid and reliable
“Anxiety and Fear of Stigmatization” Questionnaire with two subscales: Anxiety subscale and the Fear of Stigmatization. By percentile ranking of pretest scores, three hundred and forty two (342) students who scored at and above the 50th percentile formed the welldefined population of overanxious and highly stigmatizing students. They were listed to form the sampling frame
out of which one hundred and twenty (120) subjects were selected through stratified random sampling with proportional allocation of the sex and age variables.
A fourgroup pretest posttest experimental research design was adopted to investigate effects of treatment on anxiety and fear of stigmatization (dependent variables). Treatment, as the experimental variable, was manipulated to give: relaxation/exercise alone, cognitive restructuring alone,
a combination of relaxation/exercise and cognitive restructuring, and a control treatment. Arising from the research problem, three research questions were raised.
