IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0169765.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High Acceptability of HIV Self-Testing among Technical Vocational Education and Training College Students in Gauteng and North West Province: What Are the Implications for the Scale Up in South Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Mathildah Mpata Mokgatle
  • Sphiwe Madiba

Abstract

Background: Although HIV self-testing (HIVST) is globally accepted as an important complement to existing HIV testing approaches, South Africa has lagged behind in its adoption. As a result, data on the acceptability and uptake of HIVST testing is limited. The study investigated the acceptability of HIVST among students in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in two provinces in South Africa. Methods: A cross-sectional survey using a self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data among 3,662 students recruited from 13 TVET colleges. Results: The mean age of the students was 21.9 years. The majority (80.9%) were sexually active; while 66.1% reported that they had one sexual partner, and 33.9% had two or more sexual partners in the past year, and66.5% used condoms during the last sexual act. Three-quarters tested for HIV in the past year but less than half knew about HIVST prior to the survey. The acceptability of HIVST was high; about three-quarters showed a willingness to purchase a self-test kit and a majority would self-test with partners. Acceptability of HIVST was associated with being sexually active (OR = 1.73, p = 0.02, confidence interval (CI): 1.08–2.75), having ever been tested for HIV (OR = 1.74, p = 0.001, CI: 1.26–2.38), and having multiple sexual partners (OR = 0.61, p = 0.01, CI: 0.42–0.88). Three-quarters would confirm test results at a local health facility. In terms of counselling, telephone hotlines were acceptable to only 39.9%, and less than half felt that test-kit leaflets would provide sufficient information to self-test. Interpretations: The high acceptability of HIVST among the students calls for extensive planning and preparation for the scaling up of HIVST in South Africa. In addition, campaigns similar to those conducted to promote HIV counselling and testing (HCT) should be considered to educate communities about HIVST.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathildah Mpata Mokgatle & Sphiwe Madiba, 2017. "High Acceptability of HIV Self-Testing among Technical Vocational Education and Training College Students in Gauteng and North West Province: What Are the Implications for the Scale Up in South Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0169765
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169765
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169765
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169765&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0169765?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Million Phiri & Musonda Lemba & Chrispin Chomba & Vincent Kanyamuna, 2022. "Examining differentials in HIV transmission risk behaviour and its associated factors among men in Southern African countries," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Mimi Eve Teffo & Mathildah Mpata Mokgatle, 2023. "Assessing Condom Use and Views on HIV Counselling and Testing among TVET College Students in Limpopo Province, South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(11), pages 1-12, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0169765. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.