Health beliefs and barriers related to HIV prevention and screening among students of the University of Vlora: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Previous researchers have found that young university students can have a high level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS infection, but they are still not utilizing the existing HIV prevention methods. As a result there is a need to determine which factors and barriers influence the use of existing HIV screening and prevention methods among students of the University of Vlora in Albania. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among university students in the district of Vlora, Albania from April to June 2018. Stratified, multi-stage sampling technique was used to select randomly study subjects. A structured, self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to reflect the relationship between variables. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants (710) was 20.85 ± 2.1 years. 38% of them believe that chances of getting HIV would not stop them to have sexual intercourse with more than one partner, 69% report that using a condom seems like an insult to their partner. 78% of the students with sexual experience didn’t used Voluntary Counseling and Testing services. The students from the rural area (AOR = 0.50, 95% CI [0.30–0.82]) and those of first academic year (AOR second/first year =2.31, 95% CI [1.33–3.99], AOR third/first year =1.18, 95% CI [0.65–2.13]) were less likely to use HIV service. CONCLUSIONS: The findings reveal that health beliefs and barriers are good predictors of the preventive behaviours toward HIV infection. The survey has provided evidence to suggest that creating awareness about HIV prevention among student community, especially those from non-health sciences and rural areas could contribute to increased uptake of the VCT services, the condom use and to reduce the identified stigmatizing barriers.