Determinants of the willingness to test for HIV/AIDS among university students: a case study of Makerere University

Abstract

The objective of the study was to assess the factors that determine the willingness to test for HIV among University students. Specifically, I investigated whether age, gender, religion, year of study, place of residence, employment, sensitization, motivation, comprehensive knowledge on HIV, distance to nearest health center, awareness about HIV testing services, adequacy of services, social stigma and discrimination, multiple sexual partners and condom use had a significant relationship on the students willingness to test for HIV. Primary data was used in this study and it was collected using online questionnaires from 300 respondents who were undergraduate students at Makerere University. The analysis was done using frequency distribution, Pearson Chi square test and logistic regression. From the results, majority of the students were willing to test for HIV (86%). Slightly over half of the respondents (51%) were males and (49%) were females. Findings from the bivariate analysis showed that sensitization of students was related to willingness to test for HIV among students (p<0.005), awareness about HIV testing services (p<0.005), comprehensive knowledge about HIV (p<0.005), multiple sexual partners (p<0.005) were related to willingness to test for HIV among students. The multivariate analysis of the influence of number of sexual partners on students’ willingness to test while controlling for other variables was significant (p<0.05). Respondents who reported to have more than one sexual partner were 0.25 times less willing to test for HIV than the others that had one or no sexual partner at all (OR=0.25). Students who were aware about HIV testing services were found to be twenty times more willing to test for HIV compared to those that were not aware about HIV testing services (OR=20.67). The results from this study suggest that public health programs that seek to increase HIV counseling and testing among the youths should pay particular attention to efforts that target high-risk subpopulations of youth especially students. The results further suggest that these initiatives would be strengthened by including strategies to increase HIV comprehensive knowledge. These interventions should also target people that possess multiple sexual partners in order to encourage them to test for HIV