Abstract
With the high prevalence of HIV among youth in sub-Saharan Africa, it is vital to better understand factors affecting HIV testing among this population; this is the first step in the HIV treatment cascade. The purpose of this study was to examine factors related to behavioral intentions regarding HIV testing using existing pre-test data from the HIV SEERs (Stigma-reduction via Education, Empowerment, and Research) Project, a community-based participatory research program targeting 13–24-year-olds in Kenya. It was hypothesized that HIV knowledge, social support, subjective well-being, and mental health (depression, anxiety, and stress) would serve as facilitators to HIV testing while projected stigma and substance use would serve as barriers to HIV testing. In partial support of our hypotheses, findings from logistic regression analyses revealed that HIV knowledge, substance use, depression, and social support were significant predictors of HIV testing intentions. However, HIV knowledge and substance use served as facilitators while depression and social support served as barriers. While projected stigma was correlated with HIV testing intentions, it was not a significant predictor in the regression analysis. Subjective well-being, anxiety, and stress were not significant predictors in the regression analysis. These findings have important implications for HIV testing initiatives designed for youth in Kenya as well as future research on HIV testing with this population.
Highlights
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS [1] estimated the number of youth (15–24-years old) living with HIV as of 2017 to be 3.9 million worldwide
The majority of participants identified their religion as Christianity (95.5%) while 2.9% identified as Islam and 1.4% combined identified as Hindu, Buddhist, or Other
We evaluated our primary hypotheses with a logistic regression model which included intent to be tested for HIV (1 = yes or 0 = no) as the outcome variable and HIV knowledge, stigma, social support, subjective well-being, depression, anxiety, stress, and substance use included as potential predictor variables
Summary
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS [1] estimated the number of youth (15–24-years old) living with HIV as of 2017 to be 3.9 million worldwide. Among the global population of youth between the ages 15–24, there were an estimated 610,000 new cases in 2016 according to the United. 84% of these new cases occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa [2]. These numbers suggest a need to further investigate HIV prevention efforts among youth, especially in parts of the world with high HIV prevalence rates. Of the 630,000 children being administered antiretroviral therapy in countries designated as low-and middle-income, 544,000 live in Africa according to the
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