Psychological Resistance to Voluntary Counselling and Testing of HIV/AIDS among Students in Tertiary Institutions in Kano State

The discomfort and unwillingness to access Voluntary Counselling and testing exhibited by students of some tertiary institutions in Kano State can jeopardize the purpose of HIV intervention. This study investigated the interplay of Psychological Resistance and Voluntary Counselling (VC) of HIV/AIDS among the students. Three null hypotheses were postulated and tested. Cross-Sectional Survey Design was employed in which 1,512 samples were selected from a student population of 104,841 via Simple Random Sampling technique. A self-developed 20-item scale called Psychological Resistance to Voluntary Counselling Inventory (PRVCI) whose reliability coefficient is 0.83 was used for data collection. Data obtained was analyzed using a one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Chi-square and t-test statistics in respect of the three null hypotheses, at 0.05 level of confidence. Results revealed a 38% rate of Psychological resistance to Voluntary Counselling, out of which male students (M=0.1.40; SD=0.491) constituted 60% and female students (M=1.32; SD=0.465) had 40%. Also, the calculated Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z-score and t-test were greater than their respective critical values, whereas the calculated chi-square value was not significant. As such null hypotheses one and three were rejected while hypothesis two was upheld. The study recommends that Counselling Psychologists should employ an approach that contains concise and science-based HIV information.