Assessment of clinical and behavioral profile of clients attending integrated counseling and testing centers of a tertiary care institute in Eastern India: A secondary data analysis.

INTRODUCTION

Integrated counseling and testing center (ICTC) forms the major forum under the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) for counseling and testing of HIV-suspected patients. ICTC setup in a tertiary care institute also provides a chance for opportunistic screening of large number of individuals.

AIMS

The study was done to assess and to profile the ICTC clients with respect to their seropositivity rate, their biological and behavioral risk factors, and seroconcordance rate.

METHODOLOGY

We did a secondary analysis of routine health data collected in the ICTC in the formats prescribed by the NACO.

STATISTICAL DATA ANALYSIS

The data were entered into MS Excel and analyzed using SPSS version 22.

RESULTS

Majority of the clients of ICTC were in the age group of 35-49 years. Seropositivity among client-initiated group (11.9%) was much higher compared to provider-initiated group (0.3%). None of the pregnant women were found to be positive. Heterosexual route was most common form of transmission in both provider-initiated and client-initiated groups. Seroconcordance rate was 43.4% in our study.

CONCLUSION

The ICTC of a tertiary care center attracted a huge number of patients. The seropositivity in our study was greater than those generated by sentinel surveillance system. A well-functioning ICTC can help in detecting a large number of cases and also provide a forum for counseling and education about risk factors of HIV.