IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v9y2012i2p521-530d16080.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Age, Gender and Suicidal Ideation Following Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing

Author

Listed:
  • Lourens Schlebusch

    (Department of Behavioural Medicine, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 4001, South Africa)

  • Romona Devi Govender

    (Department of Family Medicine, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 4001, South Africa)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation in patients who were tested for HIV-infection and whether along with their HIV status, age and gender influenced their risk for suicidal ideation. The sample consisted of 189 patients who attended a voluntary HIV counseling and testing clinic (VCT) at a general state hospital in Durban, South Africa. Their mean age at baseline was 34.2 years, with an age range of between 16–79 years. Seropositivity, age and gender were significantly associated with suicidal ideation. The majority of these patients were in the younger age group, and young males had a 1.8 times higher risk for suicidal ideation than females. Although risk factors for seropositive-related suicidal ideation can be complex and multi-factorial, this study identified a young age and male gender as important high risk factors in the sample studied. It is recommended that all, but especially young male HIV-infected patients seen at a VCT clinic be screened for suicidal ideation and that early intervention to prevent subsequent suicides or suicidal attempts be included in pre- and post-test HIV counseling.

Suggested Citation

  • Lourens Schlebusch & Romona Devi Govender, 2012. "Age, Gender and Suicidal Ideation Following Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-10, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:9:y:2012:i:2:p:521-530:d:16080
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/9/2/521/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/9/2/521/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:9:y:2012:i:2:p:521-530:d:16080. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.