We conducted a randomized controlled trial among 305 truck drivers from two North Star Alliance roadside wellness clinics in Kenya to see if offering HIV testing choices would increase HIV testing uptake. Participants were randomized to be offered (1) a provider-administered rapid blood (finger-prick) HIV test (i.e., standard of care [SOC]) or (2) a Choice between SOC or a self-administered oral rapid HIV test with provider supervision in the clinic. Participants in the Choice arm who refused HIV testing in the clinic were offered a test kit for home use with phone-based posttest counseling. We compared HIV test uptake using the Mantel Haenszel odds ratio (OR) adjusting for clinic. Those in the Choice arm had higher odds of HIV test uptake than those in the SOC arm (OR = 1.5), but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.189). When adding the option to take an HIV test kit for home use, the Choice arm had significantly greater odds of testing uptake (OR = 2.8, p = 0.002). Of those in the Choice arm who tested, 26.9% selected the SOC test, 64.6% chose supervised self-testing in the clinic, and 8.5% took a test kit for home use. Participants varied in the HIV test they selected when given choices. Importantly, when participants who refused HIV testing in the clinic were offered a test kit for home use, an additional 8.5% tested. Offering truck drivers a variety of HIV testing choices may increase HIV testing uptake in this key population.

Introduction Zimbabwe is scaling up HIV differentiated service delivery (DSD) to improve treatment outcomes and health system efficiencies. Shifting stable patients into less-intensive DSD models is a high priority in order to accommodate the large numbers of newly-diagnosed people living with HIV (PLHIV) needing treatment and to provide healthcare workers with the time and space needed to treat people with advanced HIV disease. DSD is also seen as a way to improve service quality and enhance retention in care. National guidelines support five differentiated antiretroviral treatment models (DART) for stable HIV-positive adults, but little is known about patient preferences, a critical element needed to guide DART scale-up and ensure person-centered care. We designed a mixed-methods study to explore treatment preferences of PLHIV in urban Zimbabwe. Methods The study was conducted in Harare, and included 35 health care worker (HCW) key informant interviews (KII); 8 focus group discussions (FGD) with 54 PLHIV; a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in which 500 adult DART-eligible PLHIV selected their preferences for health facility (HF) vs. community location, individual vs. group meetings, provider cadre and attitude, clinic operation times, visit frequency, visit duration and cost to patient; and a survey with the 500 DCE participants exploring DART knowledge and preferences.

BackgroundYouth in South Africa have been identified as a high-risk group for contracting HIV. In response, the South African Integrated School Health Policy (ISHP) has been developed with the aim of guiding the provision of comprehensive healthcare services within South African schools. Accordingly, the scale-up of HIV counselling and testing (HCT) in high schools is a priority. This study examines the factors affecting the utilisation of HCT services amongst learners in high schools in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.MethodsFocus group discussions were conducted in 12 rural schools in the Vulindlela sub-district of uMgungundlovu in KwaZulu-Natal. A total of 158 randomly selected learners took part, aged 16 years and older from grades 10, 11 and 12. Qualitative analysis was conducted using the framework approach, providing a systematic structure allowing for a priori and emergent codes, with social cognitive theory as a theoretical framework.ResultsThe stigma and discrimination attached to testing, along with the inherent fear of a positive result were the biggest barriers to HCT uptake. Fear and the subsequent negative beliefs around HCT were borne out of insufficient knowledge. These fears were exacerbated by the perceived or real attitudes of peers, partners and family towards HIV. The prospect of a positive result and the possible resultant societal backlash hinders high and regular uptake of HCT. Stigma and discrimination remain the foremost barriers to HIV testing despite the presence of localised and convenient testing. Interventions aimed at addressing these challenges could increase the demand for HIV testing amongst adolescents.ConclusionsIncreasing education about the importance of HCT and creating awareness about available HCT services will not be enough to increase uptake in schools in South Africa. Efforts to decrease stigma around HIV and HCT by integrating testing into general and sexual reproductive health services offered to youth, and normalising the epidemic within the community could go some way to allaying the fears shrouding testing, if such services are designed with the specific needs of youth in mind. This paper adds to the body of literature informing the design of policy in South Africa aimed at integrating HCT into school health services.

BackgroundAge-disparate partnerships are hypothesized to increase HIV-risk for young women. However, the evidence base remains mixed. Most studies have focused only on unprotected sex among women in the partnership. Consequently, little is known about other risky behaviours, such as transactional sex, alcohol use, and concurrency, as well as the behaviours of the men who partner with young women. We therefore examined differences in various sexual behaviours of both young women and their male partners by partnership age difference.MethodsWe used nationally representative data from South Africa (2012) on partnerships reported by 16–24 year old black African women (n = 818) and by black African men in partnerships with 16–24 year old women (n = 985). We compared sexual behaviours in age-disparate partnerships and age-similar partnerships, using multiple logistic regression to control for potential confounders and to assess rural/urban differences.ResultsYoung women in age-disparate partnerships were more likely to report unprotected sex than young women in similar-aged partnerships (aOR:1.51; p = 0.014; 95%CI:1.09–2.11). Men in partnerships with young women were more likely to report unprotected sex (aOR:1.92; p<0.01; 95%CI:1.31–2.81), transactional sex (aOR:2.73; p<0.01; 95%CI:1.64–4.56), drinking alcohol before sex (aOR:1.60; p = 0.062; 95%CI:0.98–2.61), and concurrency (aOR:1.39; p = 0.097; 95%CI:0.94–2.07) when their partners were five or more years younger. The association between age-disparate partnerships and transactional sex (aOR:4.14; p<0.01; 95%CI: 2.03–8.46) and alcohol use (aOR:2.24; p<0.013; 95%CI:1.20–4.19) was only found in urban areas.ConclusionsResults provide evidence that young women’s age-disparate partnerships involve greater sexual risk, particularly through the risky behaviours of their male partners, with the risk amplified for young women in urban areas.

This qualitative study sought to understand users' perceptions of the voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and HIV-treatment services offered by a mining company in South Africa, with the intention of making recommendations to improve the rates of uptake. A purposive sample of 75 employees was interviewed and three focus groups were conducted with VCT users as well as with HIV-positive employees currently enrolled in the company's treatment programme. The relatively high uptake of VCT at the workplace appeared to be a function of the convenience afforded by rapid testing and the on-site nature of the company's annual campaign, the group nature of the campaign, and increased HIV awareness facilitated by pre-test counselling. Notwithstanding this, the study revealed barriers to uptake of VCT in the workplace, including: perceived violations of confidentiality by healthcare staff and doubts about the voluntary basis of HIV testing; organisational factors, including the visible group nature of the VCT campaign; and fear of a HIV-positive result and discrimination in that event. In contrast to VCT uptake, there was a relatively low rate of enrolment in the treatment programme: a significant proportion of HIV-positive employees identified in the VCT campaign did not present to the company's clinic for treatment. Impediments to treatment uptake included fears of being identified in the workplace as HIV-positive, which arose from perceived confidentiality violations on the part of the healthcare staff as well as organisational factors they believed allowed easy identification of the programme's users; limited time to attend the clinic; poor quality of post-test counselling and follow-up; difficulties in coping with the diagnosis; and traditional explanatory models of illness, which precluded medical care. A combination of the current annual, opt-in VCT campaign and a provider-initiated opt-out approach to VCT should be carefully considered in order to bridge the gap between the current levels of VCT and HIV-treatment uptake by employees at the company.