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Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi

BACKGROUND: The growing menace created by the HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has alarmed not only the public health officials but also the general community. The Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre (VCTC) services have begun as a cost-effective interve...

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Autor principal: Gupta, Megha
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Medknow Publications 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2800902/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20049300
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.55288
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author Gupta, Megha
author_facet Gupta, Megha
author_sort Gupta, Megha
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The growing menace created by the HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has alarmed not only the public health officials but also the general community. The Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre (VCTC) services have begun as a cost-effective intervention in reversing this epidemic. OBJECTIVES: 1) To study the sociodemographic characteristics of HIV-positive clients and their risk behaviors. 2) To elucidate the reasons for their visit to the VCTC and know the problems anticipated by the clients after revealing their HIV-positive status. STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional record-based study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted in August 2007 among clients who tested positive for HIV in the VCTC of a district hospital in Karnataka from January to July 2007. RESULTS: Study included 249 individuals of whom 161 were males and rest 88 females. A high percentage of nonresponse regarding the pattern of risk behavior was noted among the subjects (males: 42.8% and females: 90.9%). Of the individuals who responded, 91 males (98.9%) and 6 females (75.0%) had multiple heterosexual sex partners, while 1 male had homosexual partner. The figures in females show that two (25%) of them had a history of blood transfusion. The reason for visiting the VCTC were cited as some form of illness (33.3%), confirmation of test results (32.9%), family members diagnosed as HIV positive (12.9%) and 11.6% were referred from Directly Observed Treatment Scheme (DOTS) center. More than one-thirds of the sample population anticipated discrimination at the time of medical treatment. CONCLUSION: People have begun using VCTC services, which reflects a change in their attitude toward HIV. The study provides us a clue to formulate an effective approach to educate people as well as the health personnel who are thought of as one of the important sources of discrimination.
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spelling pubmed-28009022010-01-04 Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi Gupta, Megha Indian J Community Med Original Article BACKGROUND: The growing menace created by the HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) has alarmed not only the public health officials but also the general community. The Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre (VCTC) services have begun as a cost-effective intervention in reversing this epidemic. OBJECTIVES: 1) To study the sociodemographic characteristics of HIV-positive clients and their risk behaviors. 2) To elucidate the reasons for their visit to the VCTC and know the problems anticipated by the clients after revealing their HIV-positive status. STUDY DESIGN: A cross-sectional record-based study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted in August 2007 among clients who tested positive for HIV in the VCTC of a district hospital in Karnataka from January to July 2007. RESULTS: Study included 249 individuals of whom 161 were males and rest 88 females. A high percentage of nonresponse regarding the pattern of risk behavior was noted among the subjects (males: 42.8% and females: 90.9%). Of the individuals who responded, 91 males (98.9%) and 6 females (75.0%) had multiple heterosexual sex partners, while 1 male had homosexual partner. The figures in females show that two (25%) of them had a history of blood transfusion. The reason for visiting the VCTC were cited as some form of illness (33.3%), confirmation of test results (32.9%), family members diagnosed as HIV positive (12.9%) and 11.6% were referred from Directly Observed Treatment Scheme (DOTS) center. More than one-thirds of the sample population anticipated discrimination at the time of medical treatment. CONCLUSION: People have begun using VCTC services, which reflects a change in their attitude toward HIV. The study provides us a clue to formulate an effective approach to educate people as well as the health personnel who are thought of as one of the important sources of discrimination. Medknow Publications 2009-07 /pmc/articles/PMC2800902/ /pubmed/20049300 http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.55288 Text en © Indian Journal of Community Medicine http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Gupta, Megha
Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title_full Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title_fullStr Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title_full_unstemmed Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title_short Profile of Clients Tested HIV Positive in a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center of a District Hospital, Udupi
title_sort profile of clients tested hiv positive in a voluntary counseling and testing center of a district hospital, udupi
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2800902/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20049300
http://dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-0218.55288
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