Enhancing HIV self-testing uptake among university students in Rwanda: the proportion, barriers, and opportunities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: University students in Rwanda are at high risk for HIV, yet they have a low uptake of HIV self-testing, which is crucial for HIV diagnosis and prevention. This study investigated their knowledge, behaviors, and perceptions towards HIV self-testing, highlighting the barriers and opportunities whose consideration is necessary for the improvement of HIV self-testing uptake in this population. METHOD: A concurrent mixed-method design was used, and it involved 424 students from five universities across Rwanda. Quantitative data was collected through surveys, and descriptive statistics were performed. Chi-square tests were performed, and sociodemographic variables were stratified against the awareness of HIV self-testing and HIV self-testing for the past 12 months variables. Qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions using interview guides developed based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) framework; data was then analyzed thematically. RESULTS: The mean age was 23 (IQR: 21; 24), with 51.2% (n = 214/424) females. 64.7% (n = 261/424) of students had never heard of HIV self-testing, yet 37.74% (160/424) were sexually active. Among sexually active students, 17.87% were aware of HIV self-testing, but 35.82% had never used it. The reported perceived HIV self-testing barriers include high cost, unavailability of testing kits, lack of awareness, misinformation, and absence of post-test counseling. However, some HIV self-testing opportunities, like the availability of testing kits and motivating factors for university students to test, were also reported. CONCLUSION: Although university students reported the needs and benefits of HIV self-testing, uptake remains low due to misinformation, unawareness, unavailability, and the high cost of HIV self-testing kits. Increasing awareness, availing HIVST kits, and addressing the other reported barriers to HIV self-testing, is essential for the achievement of the universal goal of HIV status awareness among university students.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".