A global prospecting and mining leader recognizes HIV/AIDS as a threat to the
company and its employees. The management has committed them to have a proactive
approach trying to minimize the impact of this killing disease by putting in
place effective workplace programmes. However, programmes can only be
successful if the employees’ needs regarding knowledge, attitudes and sexual
practices have been thoroughly researched identified. The aim of this study was to do
an explorative descriptive study of the knowledge, attitudes, perceptions and
behaviours of the employees of a mining company in Namibia on HIV/AIDS.
The objectives were:
♦ To measure the overall knowledge levels as well as attitudes and sexual
practices of DBMN employees on HIV and STD’s.
♦ To determine whether there was a difference in the knowledge levels,
attitudes and sexual practices of employees in different job categories, age
groups, marital status, religion and education level.
♦ To measure risky sexual behaviours of participants.
All employees (550) of this mining company were invited to participate in the survey
and 226 employees responded. A self-constructed questionnaire was used to collect
data administered in a group setting. The questionnaire was regarded as having
content validity and the SPSS program was be utilized for descriptive statistics.
Utilizing the ratio data developed through the indexes, an analysis of variance
(ANOVA) was conducted to determine significant difference between the means of
the groups in comparison. Because multiple comparisons were done, a post hoc test
(Fisher LSD) was used to determine significant differences between group means.