Pooled prevalence, spatial variation and associated factors of HIV testing uptake among multiple sexual partners in Sub Saharan Africa: Spatial and multilevel analysis.

BACKGROUND

Uptake of HIV testing is vital for the early diagnosis of HIV infection and initiation of treatment, which are used to eliminate the disease's progression and reduce HIV-related mortality. Even if determining HIV testing is imperative to prevent HIV/AIDS among multiple sexual partners who are at higher risk of sexually transmitted infections, most of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa did not fulfil the global targets of UNAIDS. Moreover there is a paucity of literature on spatial variation and factors associated with HIV testing among high-risk groups in SSA. This study aimed to assess the pooled prevalence, spatial variation and determinants of HIV testing uptake among multiple sexual partners in Sub Saharan Africa.

METHODS

The Demographic and Health Surveys data conducted between 2011 and 2021 in 30 Sub-Saharan Africa countries was used to analyze total weighted sample of 56,210 multiple sexual partners. Exploratory spatial data analysis, with countries as the unit of analysis was conducted using ArcGIS V10.7.1 and Sat Scan V 10.1 soft wares. A multilevel binary logistic regression model was used to identify the factors associated with the HIV testing uptake. The Adjusted odds Ratio with a 95% confidence interval was reported to declare the strength of association and their statistical significance.

RESULTS

The spatial patterns of HIV testing uptake were found to be non-random. Primary clusters were identified around western and central sub- regions. Multiple sexual partners who were ever married, those attended primary level and above education, those from rich wealth status, aged above 24 years, having good HIV related knowledge, and exposed to media were positive association with HIV testing uptake. However, being male, having working status and living in rural area were negatively associated with HIV testing uptake. At the community-level, multiple sexual partners from communities in Eastern and southern sub regions, countries with upper middle income and countries with the survey year after 2014 were more likely to utilize HIV testing services compared with their counterparts.

CONCLUSION

In this study, the pooled prevalence of the HIV testing uptake among multiple sexual partners was found to be lower than the universal target and showed differences in HIV testing uptake across Sub-Saharan Africa region. Both individual and community-level factors affected HIV testing uptake among multiple sexual partners. Stakeholders should implement interventions to help increase the uptake of HIV testing among those risky groups in this region.