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HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya
BACKGROUND: Finding HIV infected persons and engaging them in care is crucial in achieving UNAIDS 90–90-90 targets; diagnosing 90% of those infected with HIV, initiating 90% of the diagnosed on ART and achieving viral suppression in 90% of those on ART. To achieve the first target, no person should...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6203278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30359223 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-018-0941-x |
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author | Kiplagat, Jepchirchir Huschke, Susann |
author_facet | Kiplagat, Jepchirchir Huschke, Susann |
author_sort | Kiplagat, Jepchirchir |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Finding HIV infected persons and engaging them in care is crucial in achieving UNAIDS 90–90-90 targets; diagnosing 90% of those infected with HIV, initiating 90% of the diagnosed on ART and achieving viral suppression in 90% of those on ART. To achieve the first target, no person should be left behind in their access to HIV testing services. In Kenya, HIV prevention and testing services give less emphasis on older adults. This article describes HIV testing experiences of older adults living with HIV and how their age shaped their interaction and treatment received during HIV testing and diagnosis. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study in two HIV clinics (rural and urban) in western Kenya, and recruited 57 HIV infected persons aged ≥50 years. We conducted in depth interviews (IDIs) with 25 participants and 4 focus group discussions (FGDs) with a total of 32 participants and audio recorded all the sessions. Participants recruited were aged between 54 and 79 years with 43% being females. We transcribed audio records and analyzed the data using thematic content analysis method. RESULTS: Older persons’ experiences with HIV testing depended on where they tested (hospital or community setting); whether they actively sought the testing or not; and the age and gender of the healthcare provider who conducted the test. Participants expressed concerns with ageist discrimination when actively seeking HIV care testing services in hospital settings, characterized by providers’ reluctance or refusal to test. The testing and counseling sessions were described as short and hurried within the hospital settings, whereas the interactions with service providers in home-based testing were experienced as appropriate and supportive. Participants in this study expressed preference for healthcare providers who were older and of similar gender. CONCLUSION: HIV testing services are still not tailored to target older adults’ needs in our setting resulting in late diagnosis among older persons. We argue that a scale-up of community level testing services that provide adequate testing and counselling time and actively reach out to older adults is key to attaining the UNAIDS targets of having 90% of PLWH know their status. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-018-0941-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6203278 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-62032782018-11-01 HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya Kiplagat, Jepchirchir Huschke, Susann BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: Finding HIV infected persons and engaging them in care is crucial in achieving UNAIDS 90–90-90 targets; diagnosing 90% of those infected with HIV, initiating 90% of the diagnosed on ART and achieving viral suppression in 90% of those on ART. To achieve the first target, no person should be left behind in their access to HIV testing services. In Kenya, HIV prevention and testing services give less emphasis on older adults. This article describes HIV testing experiences of older adults living with HIV and how their age shaped their interaction and treatment received during HIV testing and diagnosis. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study in two HIV clinics (rural and urban) in western Kenya, and recruited 57 HIV infected persons aged ≥50 years. We conducted in depth interviews (IDIs) with 25 participants and 4 focus group discussions (FGDs) with a total of 32 participants and audio recorded all the sessions. Participants recruited were aged between 54 and 79 years with 43% being females. We transcribed audio records and analyzed the data using thematic content analysis method. RESULTS: Older persons’ experiences with HIV testing depended on where they tested (hospital or community setting); whether they actively sought the testing or not; and the age and gender of the healthcare provider who conducted the test. Participants expressed concerns with ageist discrimination when actively seeking HIV care testing services in hospital settings, characterized by providers’ reluctance or refusal to test. The testing and counseling sessions were described as short and hurried within the hospital settings, whereas the interactions with service providers in home-based testing were experienced as appropriate and supportive. Participants in this study expressed preference for healthcare providers who were older and of similar gender. CONCLUSION: HIV testing services are still not tailored to target older adults’ needs in our setting resulting in late diagnosis among older persons. We argue that a scale-up of community level testing services that provide adequate testing and counselling time and actively reach out to older adults is key to attaining the UNAIDS targets of having 90% of PLWH know their status. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12877-018-0941-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC6203278/ /pubmed/30359223 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-018-0941-x Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Kiplagat, Jepchirchir Huschke, Susann HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title | HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title_full | HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title_fullStr | HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title_full_unstemmed | HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title_short | HIV testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with HIV in western Kenya |
title_sort | hiv testing and counselling experiences: a qualitative study of older adults living with hiv in western kenya |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6203278/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30359223 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-018-0941-x |
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