Njuguna Njambi, Ngure Kenneth, Mugo Nelly, Sambu Carrole, Sianyo Christopher, Gakuo Stephen, Irungu Elizabeth, Baeten Jared, Heffron Renee
From the *Kenyatta National Hospital, Research and Programs Department, Nairobi, Kenya; †University of Washington, Department of Global Health, Seattle, WA; ‡Partners in Health and Research Development, Kenyatta National Hospital; §Kenya Medical Research Institute, Center for Clinical Research, Nairobi; and ¶Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, School of Public Health, Juja, Kenya.
Sex Transm Dis. 2016 Jun;43(6):353-9. doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000450.
More than half of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals in Kenya are unaware of their status, and young women carry a disproportionate burden of incident HIV infections. We sought to determine the effect of an SMS intervention on uptake of HIV testing among female Kenyan college students.
We conducted a quasi-experimental study to increase HIV testing among women 18 to 24 years old. Four midlevel training colleges in Central Kenya were allocated to have their study participants receive either weekly SMS on HIV and reproductive health topics or no SMS. Monthly 9-question SMS surveys were sent to all participants for 6 months to collect data on HIV testing, sexual behavior, and HIV risk perception. We used multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression to detect differences in the time to the first HIV test reported by women during the study period.
We enrolled 600 women between September 2013 and March 2014 of whom 300 received weekly SMS and monthly surveys and 300 received only monthly surveys. On average, women were 21 years of age (interquartile range, 20-22), 71.50% had ever had sex and 72.62% had never tested for HIV. A total of 356 women reported testing for HIV within the 6 months of follow-up: 67% from the intervention arm and 51% from the control arm (hazard ratio, 1.57; 95% confidence interval, 1.28-1.92).
Use of weekly text messages about HIV prevention and reproductive health significantly increased rates of HIV testing among young Kenyan women and would be feasible to implement widely among school populations.
肯尼亚超过一半的人类免疫缺陷病毒(HIV)感染者不知道自己的感染状况,而年轻女性承受着不成比例的新增HIV感染负担。我们试图确定短信干预对肯尼亚女大学生接受HIV检测的影响。
我们进行了一项准实验研究,以增加18至24岁女性的HIV检测。肯尼亚中部的四所中等职业培训学院被分配,让其研究参与者要么每周收到关于HIV和生殖健康主题的短信,要么不接收短信。每月向所有参与者发送9个问题的短信调查问卷,持续6个月,以收集关于HIV检测、性行为和HIV风险认知的数据。我们使用多变量Cox比例风险回归来检测研究期间女性报告首次进行HIV检测的时间差异。
我们在2013年9月至2014年3月期间招募了600名女性,其中300名每周收到短信和月度调查,300名只收到月度调查。平均而言,女性年龄为21岁(四分位间距为20 - 22岁),71.50%有过性行为,72.62%从未进行过HIV检测。共有356名女性在随访的6个月内报告进行了HIV检测:干预组为67%,对照组为51%(风险比为1.57;95%置信区间为1.28 - 1.92)。
使用关于HIV预防和生殖健康的每周短信显著提高了肯尼亚年轻女性的HIV检测率,并且在学校人群中广泛实施是可行的。