Awareness and willingness to use HIV self-testing among students in higher learning institutions in Dodoma City, Tanzania

Abstract

Background: HIV self-testing has been reported in various studies to be an efficient intervention that can help to increase the level of awareness and utilization of HIV care and treatment services. This intervention has been recommended by WHO and is currently being scaled up in several African countries. We determined the awareness and willingness to use HIV self-testing among students in higher learning institutions in Dodoma city, Tanzania Broad Objective: The objective of this study is to determine awareness and willingness to use HIV self-testing among students in higher learning institutions in Dodoma city, Tanzania. Material and methods; We carried out a cross–sectional survey among students attending higher learning institutions in Dodoma City, Tanzania. We applied a multi-stage sampling procedure by randomly selecting two higher learning institutions using the probability proportional to size approach. The sample size for this study was 762 calculated from a single population proportion formula. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information from study participants. We double-entered the collected data into Epidata and imported the clean data for analysis using Stata version 14. We determined the proportion of sexual behaviours, awareness, and willingness to use HIVST. We performed bivariate analysis to determine factors associated with willingness to use HIVST was performed using Chi square. Ethical clearance was sought from MUHAS Institutional Review Board (IRB) Results: Of 1917 students recruited in the study, 1210(63.1%) were from St. John’s University. The mean (± standard deviation) age was 23(± 2.4) years.50% of all the participants had never tested for HIV. More than 80% of both males and females reported having ever heard about HIV self-testing while 794(85.5%) of males and 597(87.7%) of females reported having previously used HIV self-testing (HIVST). Almost all the participants (99.9%) were willing to use the service if provided in a comfortable environment. Conclusion: Findings from this study show that the awareness to use HIVST is high (80%) and almost all the participants (99.9%) are willing to use HIVST. Therefore, the implementation of HIVST in higher learning institutions is possible though interventions should consider factors such as cost for the test kits, false positives, access, and location to HIVST and linkage to care and treatment services for those who test positive.