Voluntary HIV Counselling and Testing Services: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Correlates of Utilisation among Young People in the Tema Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

Voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VHCT) is a successful intervention for fostering early HIV detection, which is essential for the management of the disease. This study sought to determine the prevalence and factors that influence the utilization of VHCT services among young people. In this study, young people in the Tema Metropolis were cross-sectionally surveyed. The simple random sampling method was used to select the participants. The majority (60%) of the participants were unaware of VHCT, and 83% did not know of any VHCT centre. The majority (72%) of the participants indicated that VHCT was important, and 81% were willing to test for HIV if VHCT services were available in schools. Young people who knew that parental consent was not a requirement during VHCT were about two times more likely to have been tested for HIV (COR = 1.96; 95% CI: 1.05–3.63) compared to their counterparts. Additionally, young people who were willing to test in youth-friendly clinics (AOR = 2.87; 95% CI: 1.09–7.51) had higher odds of testing for HIV compared to their counterparts. The utilisation of VHCT services among young people in Tema was found to be very low. Additionally, young people’s knowledge of VHCT services was below expectations.