HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt among East African women of reproductive age using recent national health surveys.

INTRODUCTION

One of the most important public health concerns is still the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), particularly in developing countries. Although HIV testing is an important step in both prevention and treatment, its uptake remains low, and no study has looked into the scale of HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt among East African women all at the same time. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt, as well as the factors that influence them, among East African women.

METHODS

This analysis used Demographic and Health Survey data collected from 10 East African countries between 2011 and 2022. We examined the coverage of HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt among East African women, as well as other characteristics. To select candidate factors and identify significant explanatory variables related to the outcome variable, binary and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted, and the results were presented using adjusted odds ratios (AORs) with 95% confidence intervals. In the binary and multiple logistic regression analyses, values of less than or equal to 0.2 and <0.05 were used to assess significant variables, respectively.

RESULTS

A total of 41,627 weighted women included to this study. HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt among East African women were found to be 77.86% (95% CI = 77.46, 78.26). Being 25-34 years old (AOR = 1.13, 95% CI, 1.06, 1.21), 35-49 years old (AOR = 1.15, 95% CI, 1.05, 1.26) as compared to 15-24 years old women, primary education (AOR = 1.75, 95% CI, 1.64, 1.86), secondary/higher education level (AOR = 1.96, 95% CI, 1.82, 2.13) as compared to not educated women, poor, (AOR = 1.22, 95% CI, 1.14, 1.29), middle wealth (AOR = 1.12, 95% CI, 1.04, 1.21) as compared to rich wealth index, mass media exposure (AOR = 1.29, 95% CI, 1.22, 1.35), 3-5 parity (AOR = 1.29, 95% CI, 1.21, 1.37), more than 5 parity (AOR = 1.46, 95% CI, 1.33, 1.61) as compared to <3 parity, health institution delivery (AOR = 1.65, 95% CI, 1.53, 1.76), were associated positively with the outcome variable respectively. However, being married (AOR = 0.79, 95% CI, 0.72, 0.87), not using contraceptive (AOR = 0.58, 95% CI, 0.51, 0.61), and traditional contraceptive method user (AOR = 0.47, 95% CI, 0.41, 0.54) as compared to modern users were associated negatively with outcome variable respectively.

CONCLUSION

This study found that HIV counseling, testing, and test result receipt are still unsatisfactory. Strengthening maternal health services such as institutional delivery, family planning, and women's empowerment, as well as changing mass media and taking advantage of these opportunities, will boost the region's coverage of HIV counseling, testing, and obtaining results.