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Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey

BACKGROUND: HIV testing is one of the key strategies in the HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes. However, studies examining utilization of this service by men in Malawi are limited. The aim of this study was to assess the uptake and determinants of HIV testing among men in Malawi. METHODS: Se...

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Autores principales: Mandiwa, Chrispin, Namondwe, Bernadetta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6440107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30922321
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4031-3
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author Mandiwa, Chrispin
Namondwe, Bernadetta
author_facet Mandiwa, Chrispin
Namondwe, Bernadetta
author_sort Mandiwa, Chrispin
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: HIV testing is one of the key strategies in the HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes. However, studies examining utilization of this service by men in Malawi are limited. The aim of this study was to assess the uptake and determinants of HIV testing among men in Malawi. METHODS: Secondary data analysis was conducted on cross–sectional household data for 7478 men aged 15 to 54 years drawn from the 2015–16 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the socio–demographic, behavioral and health service related factors that are associated with HIV testing service utilisation by men in Malawi. All analyses were performed using the complex sample analysis procedure of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 22.0 to account for the multistage sampling used in Demographic Health Survey. RESULTS: Overall, 69.9% of the participants had ever been tested for HIV. The results indicate that age, region of residence, marital status, covered by health insurance, education and age at first sexual debut are significant predictors of HIV testing among men in Malawi. In particular, men who were in the age group 30–39 years (AOR = 3.00; 95% CI = 2.35–3.82), married (AOR = 3.03; 95% CI = 2.51–3.65), those with secondary or above education (AOR = 3.02; 95% CI = 2.33–3.91), and those who had health insurance (AOR = 1.66; 95% CI = 1.05–2.63) were likely to utilise HIV testing service than their counterparts. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that HIV testing services and programmes need to target younger unmarried men aged 15–19, men with low level or no education and expand HIV testing services to the central and southern regions of Malawi. Targeting the undiagnosed men living with HIV in a timely manner is a crucial and necessary step not only for achieving the UNAIDS’ 90–90–90 targets but for individuals to benefit from antiretroviral treatment and to sustainably reduce population–level HIV transmission.
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spelling pubmed-64401072019-04-11 Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey Mandiwa, Chrispin Namondwe, Bernadetta BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: HIV testing is one of the key strategies in the HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes. However, studies examining utilization of this service by men in Malawi are limited. The aim of this study was to assess the uptake and determinants of HIV testing among men in Malawi. METHODS: Secondary data analysis was conducted on cross–sectional household data for 7478 men aged 15 to 54 years drawn from the 2015–16 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the socio–demographic, behavioral and health service related factors that are associated with HIV testing service utilisation by men in Malawi. All analyses were performed using the complex sample analysis procedure of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 22.0 to account for the multistage sampling used in Demographic Health Survey. RESULTS: Overall, 69.9% of the participants had ever been tested for HIV. The results indicate that age, region of residence, marital status, covered by health insurance, education and age at first sexual debut are significant predictors of HIV testing among men in Malawi. In particular, men who were in the age group 30–39 years (AOR = 3.00; 95% CI = 2.35–3.82), married (AOR = 3.03; 95% CI = 2.51–3.65), those with secondary or above education (AOR = 3.02; 95% CI = 2.33–3.91), and those who had health insurance (AOR = 1.66; 95% CI = 1.05–2.63) were likely to utilise HIV testing service than their counterparts. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that HIV testing services and programmes need to target younger unmarried men aged 15–19, men with low level or no education and expand HIV testing services to the central and southern regions of Malawi. Targeting the undiagnosed men living with HIV in a timely manner is a crucial and necessary step not only for achieving the UNAIDS’ 90–90–90 targets but for individuals to benefit from antiretroviral treatment and to sustainably reduce population–level HIV transmission. BioMed Central 2019-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC6440107/ /pubmed/30922321 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4031-3 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 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
Mandiwa, Chrispin
Namondwe, Bernadetta
Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title_full Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title_fullStr Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title_full_unstemmed Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title_short Uptake and correlates of HIV testing among men in Malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
title_sort uptake and correlates of hiv testing among men in malawi: evidence from a national population–based household survey
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6440107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30922321
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4031-3
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