<p>Factors Affecting Voluntary HIV/AIDS Counseling and Testing Service Utilization Among Youth in Gondar City, Northwest Ethiopia</p>

Abstract

Background Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a vital response to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. Determining the status of VCT services is important to link HIV care and antiretroviral therapy. Methods An institutional cross-sectional study design was conducted among 841 young students at Gondar College of Teachers’ Education. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather the data. Descriptive statistics were performed. Bivariate and multivariable binary logistic regressions were used to identify factors associated with the use of VCTs. The adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence was used to report statistical significance. Results The majority (71%) were aware of VCT services. More than one-third (37.8%, 95% CI: 34.6–41.2) participants had used VCT services. Having peer groups used VCT (AOR=2.04, 95% CI: 1.31–3.20), having partner (AOR: =1.6, 95% CI: 1.04–2.45), desiring to have VCT in the future (AOR=3.58, 95% CI: 1.98–6.50), being aware of VCT (AOR= 1.98, 95% CI: 1.20–3.34), knew infected/dead individuals with HIV/AIDS (AOR=1.67, 95% CI: 1.07–2.61), know test sites (AOR=2.01, 95% CI: 1.29–3.13) were positively associated, whereas being married (AOR=0.36, 95% CI: 0.20–0.63) and fear of confidentiality (AOR=0.23, 95% CI: 0.10–0.52) were major barriers to use. Conclusion Low use of VCTs, which was far away from the 90:90:90 WHO goal, has been noted. The use of VCT services was associated with having peer groups that used VCT, having a partner, wanting to have VCT in the future, knowing the infected/dead individual with HIV/AIDS, fear of confidentiality of results, knowing the test sites, and having awareness of VCT. Efforts are needed to strengthen the health system that also needs to pay attention to education about HIV and VCT.

Assessment of the factors affecting practice towards HIV/AIDS among in-School Youth in the West Guji Zone, South Ethiopia, 2021

“…Study subjects, age group between15-19 were ve times more likely protected from HIV than age group between 20-24 years old. This result was in contrast with a study conducted in North Ethiopia, Gondar town that participants with an age range between15-19 were 1.72 times more likely exposed to HIV [25]. The difference may be due to the population which was a larger sample size in the present study and study area.…”

“…Visiting sexually related videos and drinking alcohol were risk factors for poor preventive practice towards HIV in this study. These ndings were a rmed with the studies carried out in south Ethiopia, Arba Minch town, and North Ethiopia, Gondar town [23,25]. This can be due to the fact that visiting porn graph stimulates the youth to the risk practices and alcohol was central nervous system depressant which contributes to less protection from HIV.…”

“…In this study, 382(65.2%) of the participants were utilized youth-friendly health services. This nding was higher than the studies done in Iran (13.1%) [17] and Northern Ethiopia, Gondar town (37.8%) [25].…”

“…This is because the existed misconceptions regarding condom utilization were still a barrier for users. On the other hand, this nding was higher than existing literature [17,18,20,22,25,29]. This difference might be due to variation in the study population, population size, and study setting coverage, and cut point for operational de nition.…”

“…The nding was lower than the studies carried out in South Africa 95.5% [24]. However, the result higher than the studies conducted in northern Ethiopia, Gondar town 45% [25] and in West Africa Ghana 61.6% [26]. The observed difference can be explained in terms of the study population and population size, that the study population in the previous studies included preparatory students and the less population size in former studies.…”