Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania

BACKGROUND: Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a corner stone for successful implementation of prevention, care and support services among HIV negative and positive individuals. VCT is also perceived to be an effective strategy in risk reduction among sexually active young people.. This study...

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Autores principales: Charles, Mgosha P, Kweka, Eliningaya J, Mahande, Aneth M, Barongo, Longin R, Shekalaghe, Seif, Nkya, Hassan M, Lowassa, Asanterabi, Mahande, Michael J
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684744/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19426514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-9-128
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author Charles, Mgosha P
Kweka, Eliningaya J
Mahande, Aneth M
Barongo, Longin R
Shekalaghe, Seif
Nkya, Hassan M
Lowassa, Asanterabi
Mahande, Michael J
author_facet Charles, Mgosha P
Kweka, Eliningaya J
Mahande, Aneth M
Barongo, Longin R
Shekalaghe, Seif
Nkya, Hassan M
Lowassa, Asanterabi
Mahande, Michael J
author_sort Charles, Mgosha P
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a corner stone for successful implementation of prevention, care and support services among HIV negative and positive individuals. VCT is also perceived to be an effective strategy in risk reduction among sexually active young people.. This study aimed to assess the acceptability of VCT and its actual uptake among young health care professional students at KCM College of Tumaini University and Allied health schools. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study. A structured questionnaire was used among health care professional students aged 18–25 years who were enrolled in degrees, diplomas and certificates courses at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College and all other Allied health schools RESULTS: A total of 309 students were recruited, among these 197 (63.8%) were females. All respondents were aware of the benefits of VCT. Only 107 (34.6%) of students have had VCT done previously. About 59 (19.1%) of the students had negative for health care professional to attend VCT. Risk perception among the students was low (37.2%) even though they were found to have higher risk behaviors that predispose them to get HIV infection. CONCLUSION: Awareness of VCT services and willingness to test is high among students; however its uptake is low. In order to promote these services, a comprehensive training module on VCT needs to be included in their training curricula. In particular, more emphasis should focus on the benefits of VCT and to help the students to internalize the risk of HIV so that they can take preventive measures.
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spelling pubmed-26847442009-05-21 Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania Charles, Mgosha P Kweka, Eliningaya J Mahande, Aneth M Barongo, Longin R Shekalaghe, Seif Nkya, Hassan M Lowassa, Asanterabi Mahande, Michael J BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a corner stone for successful implementation of prevention, care and support services among HIV negative and positive individuals. VCT is also perceived to be an effective strategy in risk reduction among sexually active young people.. This study aimed to assess the acceptability of VCT and its actual uptake among young health care professional students at KCM College of Tumaini University and Allied health schools. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study. A structured questionnaire was used among health care professional students aged 18–25 years who were enrolled in degrees, diplomas and certificates courses at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College and all other Allied health schools RESULTS: A total of 309 students were recruited, among these 197 (63.8%) were females. All respondents were aware of the benefits of VCT. Only 107 (34.6%) of students have had VCT done previously. About 59 (19.1%) of the students had negative for health care professional to attend VCT. Risk perception among the students was low (37.2%) even though they were found to have higher risk behaviors that predispose them to get HIV infection. CONCLUSION: Awareness of VCT services and willingness to test is high among students; however its uptake is low. In order to promote these services, a comprehensive training module on VCT needs to be included in their training curricula. In particular, more emphasis should focus on the benefits of VCT and to help the students to internalize the risk of HIV so that they can take preventive measures. BioMed Central 2009-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC2684744/ /pubmed/19426514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-9-128 Text en Copyright © 2009 Charles et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Charles, Mgosha P
Kweka, Eliningaya J
Mahande, Aneth M
Barongo, Longin R
Shekalaghe, Seif
Nkya, Hassan M
Lowassa, Asanterabi
Mahande, Michael J
Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title_full Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title_fullStr Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title_full_unstemmed Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title_short Evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
title_sort evaluation of uptake and attitude to voluntary counseling and testing among health care professional students in kilimanjaro region, tanzania
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684744/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19426514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-9-128
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