Integrating HIV counseling and testing to routine medical care may increase testing rates among undergraduate students
Introduction: Many HIV-infected persons do not get tested until late in their infection. The development of new testing strategies creates new prospects for expanding testing to identify and treat HIV-infected persons earlier, avoiding new infections and reducing care costs. Our objective was to evaluate HIV testing behaviors and motives to facilitate optimization of testing practices.
Methods: Cross-sectional anonymous survey of 645 undergraduate students in Caxias do Sul, Brazil from November to December, 2004. A questionnaire comprised of single and multiple choice questions was administered after proper introduction and formal consent to collect information on demographic data, HIV transmission risks prevention and testing behaviors. Privacy was assured to respondents.
Results: Mean age of the 635 eligible participants was 25 years (range 17-56), 68.7% were female, and 73.1% were single. Of the 635 participants, 295(46,5%) reported testing and knowledge of their HIV status. Of the 295 that reported testing, 137 (46.4%) pointed reasons for testing: physician request 36 (26,3%), blood donation 26(19%), curiosity 25 (18,2%), risk of exposure 16(11.7%), partner request 11 (8%), employer request 11(8%) and others 12(8.8%). Although reasons for testing vary, the reasons most frequently mentioned were related to referral by a health care provider (53,3%) Overall, 48,5% of men and 58,2% of women that informed reasons for testing were tested primarily because the test was offered or recommended by a health-care professional.
Conclusions: Most of college students sought testing as consequence of third party request instead of their willingness to do the test. This observation suggests that a better engagement of health care providers on the awareness of the importance of HIV testing may facilitate optimization of testing practices and have a positive impact on testing rates. We speculate that incorporating HIV testing to routine medical care may contribute to reduce the emotional distress associated to HIV testing.
De Souza C.1, Bisol M.1, Maggi A.2, Wagner T.2, De Souza R.1
1Laboratório de Pesquisa em HIV/AIDS, Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Brazil, 2Department of Psychology, Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Brazil