Overcoming Barriers to HIV Testing: Preferences for New Strategies Among Clients of a Needle Exchange, a Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic, and Sex Venues for Men Who Have Sex with Men

Abstract

Strategies for improving acceptance of HIV counseling and testing include information about access to anonymous testing and early treatment. Expanding options for rapid testing, urine testing, and home self-testing; providing alternatives to venipuncture; making pretest counseling optional; and allowing telephone results disclosure may encourage more persons to learn their HIV status.

Low-cost tools for diagnosing and monitoring HIV infection in low-resource settings

“…18 In addition, the noninvasiveness of specimen collection eliminates the anxiety associated with blood collection and leads to higher rates of voluntary HIV testing. 19,20 The OraQuick Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test (Orasure Technologies, Inc., Bethlehem, United States of America) is a lateral flow rapid test for saliva specimens that performs as well as blood-based tests, even at low concentrations of HIV antigens in saliva.…”

“Bringing Testing to the People”: A Discussion of an HIV-Testing Outreach Project Targeting Impoverished Women

“…One of the earliest studies was conducted by Spielberg et al (2003). A survey of elicited testing motivators, barriers, and preferences for new strategies was administered to a sample of 460 participants at the following: a needle exchange, three sex venues for men www.intechopen.com who have sex with men, and a sexually transmitted disease clinic.…”

Injecting drug users who are (un)aware of their HIV serostatus: findings from the multi-center study AjUDE-Brasil II

“…Individuals with little schooling show higher odds of not being properly informed about issues related to HIV infection and AIDS and thus have an insufficient perception of the objective risks to which they are exposed 22,23 or express a fatalistic view, i.e., that nothing can Probability of not knowing HIV status, stratified by low, medium, and high background HIV prevalence among IDUs.…”

“…Two important factors are fear of finding out that they are infected and discrimination associated with seropositive status 23,27 . Thus, the association shown by the current study between high local background HIV prevalence and higher individual probability of having been tested does not allow one to generalize, i.e., sites heavily affected by the epidemic are not necessarily associated with higher serostatus awareness.…”

“…Risk practices for HIV infection 3,22,23,27,32,33 and recognition of increased risk 22 can increase the odds of individuals knowing their serological status. In this sense, another analysis in the AjUDE Project showed a higher frequency of risk behaviors among female IDUs, in relation to initiation in drug injecting and to sexual practices 34 , which on the other hand could favor HIV testing.…”