Higher Education Students Behaviour Related to HIV Testing

Background: Currently economical, reliable, and easily accepted screening tests for HIV infection are available, which may improve prognosis of HIV/AIDS.

Methods: a analytical correlational study. The sample was composed of 2002 students (60.7% female), aged M=21.76 ± 4.43, attending in higher education of Portugal. They live in urban areas with their parents, who attended the 4^th grade; the father usually is a working class employee and the mother has an unskilled profession. Most of the students do not have a waged activity, usually follow a religion and have a sibling. This study focuses on the students’ behaviour related to HIV screening tests, confirming whether they made a consultation for a screening test and the place where it was done.

Results: about 8 in every 10 students, from the whole sample, failed to schedule a consultation for a screening test for AIDS, among which 83.0% were male and 72.5% female.

Only a minority of 4.4% of all subjects confirmed having booked an appointment with 5.5% of males and 3.7% female. About 19.0% said they did not make an appointment because they did not have sexual relations or use drugs.

The preferred location (42.9%) for the AIDS screening test was the Medical Office, 42.3% for boys and 43.4% for girls, implying that this is due to a greater privacy. 27.2% of the subjects informed doing the test whenever they donated blood.

Between testing for AIDS and scheduling an appointment for a test, the correlation (rho = 0,932, p = 0.000) is positive and significant, which allows us to state that a lower desire for scheduling the AIDS test corresponds to a higher intention to schedule a consultation.

Conclusions: Although many of them have the knowledge, they do not alter their risk behaviour.