The dynamics of HIV transmission in out of school young heterosexual men in South Africa: a systematic scoping review protocol

Abstract

BackgroundIn South Africa, gender inequality dominated by males and heterosexual HIV epidemic are associated with high HIV infection. Underlying epidemiological and social determinants driving HIV acquisition and transmission are critical to understand the extent and complexity of sexual networks as primary mechanisms through which HIV is likely to spread. The aim of the study is to provide an overview of empiric evidence that links the complex interaction of risk of HIV infection in men.Methods and analysisWe will conduct a systematic scoping review to identify, describe, and map literature on the dynamics of HIV infection in men, and we will determine the quality of the studies reporting on the dynamics of HIV infections in men. Primary research articles, published in peer-reviewed journals, review articles, and gray literature that address the research question, will be included. We will search PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Science Direct, EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, World Health Organization library, and UNAIDS database. Reference lists and existing networks such as government organizations and conferences will also be included to source relevant literature. Two independent reviewers will extract data in parallel from all relevant search engines, using specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. A thematic content analysis will be used to present the narrative account of the reviews, using NVivo version 10.DiscussionWe anticipate finding relevant literature on the dynamics of HIV transmission in South African men. Once summarized, data will be useful to guide future research.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42016039489 Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0398-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

An evaluation of male learners’ knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding sexual and reproductive health in rural northern KwaZulu-Natal province

“…Only 65% of participants who were sexually active knew their HIV status, which is considerably lower than the 90-90-90 UNAIDS initiative to ensure that 90% of the population know their HIV status. 32 A recent study by Ntombela et al has reported on research outcomes which suggest that being black African male, having low levels of education, being from a rural area and being unemployed are all associated with lower knowledge of one's own HIV status, 33 and increase HIV risk behaviours in men. 34 It was of concern that just over a third of those who were sexually active were knowledgeable about their partner's HIV status.…”

HIV Risks in Sexual Networks of Heterosexual Men in South Africa

“…The current study is a systematic scoping review which was registered in the international prospective register of systematic reviews (PROSPERO). The registration number of the review is CRD42016039489 and is accessible via this link https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-016-0398-y (Ntombela, Mashamba-Thompson, Mtshali, Voce, & Kharsany, 2017).…”

“…Scoping reviews are essential in comprehensive synthesis of evidence of a range of study designs (O'Brien et al, 2016), with aims to i) Assess the extent, range and nature of evidence on the literature on the topic, ii) to establish the need of conducting a systematic review, iii) to summarize and disseminate research findings and lastly iv) to identify gaps in literature on the topic. We used an amended version of a scoping review protocol described by Ntombela et al, (Ntombela et al, 2017). Briefly, we adopted a framework by Arksey, H., and O'Malley (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005).…”

“…The focus of our scoping review was to answer the question, What is known from existing literature about the dynamics of HIV transmission among heterosexual South African men? An amended PICOS (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes and Study setting) framework was used to determine the eligibility of the research question, as described in (Ntombela et al, 2017). To help answer our main question we asked the following questions, i) What is the prevalence and incidence of HIV infection in heterosexual men of South Africa?…”

“…We used a standardized data extraction sheet which was created on an Excel spreadsheet as detailed on the scoping protocol (Ntombela et al, 2017). The sheet included details on bibliography, the type of study design, the number of participants enrolled, study setting, type of intervention (s), and conclusions based on the primary and the secondary outcomes of the interventions.…”