ABSTRACT
Background: For many AIDS patients in low income countries such as African countries (Tanzania); hospital care is not always affordable or accessible and home-based care services rarely exist as a solution for meeting needs of PLWHA. Objective: To assess the knowledge; attitude and practice of home based care among family care givers for PLWHA. Setting: Study was conducted at Ukonga ward in Ilala District; Dar es Salaam with family care givers who accepted to participate in the study. Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study design was used: Convenience sampling wasused in recruiting the family care givers who had ever provided or were at that time providing care to PLWHA at Ukonga ward. Results: 103 Family Care givers participated in this study; 73(71) were female and 30(29) were male. The mean age of participants was 38 years. The study revealed that 17believed that they were knowledgeable; 65(63) had inadequate knowledge and 21( 20) had no knowledge whatsoever of HBC for PLWHA.. The relationship of believed knowledge and hospital re-admission of PLWHA was not statistically supported (P 0.001; P) reported that home is a better place than hospital in caring for PLWHA; and the relationship with hospitalre-admission was not signifi cance supported (P=0.2629); 55(53) reported to have had goodpractice of Home-Based Care for their patients. The relationship of poor practice of Home Based Care and hospital re-admission of PLWHA was statistically not supported (P=0.61762). Conclusions and recommendation: The study highlighted that majority of family care givers believed they had inadequate knowledge; had a good attitude and practice of the HBC provision. Therefore HBC Training is important for family members who are taking care of their relatives living with HIV/AIDS and further studies should be conducted in order to explore reasons as to why there is prevalence of hospital re-admission among PLWHA in developing countries like Tanzania