Medpedia Podcast. Apps Newsletter Abo-Shop. Springer Medizin. Suche Suchbegriffe eingeben Suchen. Reproductive Health. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study was conducted using structured questionnaires among conveniently selected students enrolled at a privately owned tertiary institution in Accra, Ghana. Results The respondents consisted of The study also revealed a significant association between demographic variables, testing for HIV and intention to test in the future.
Participants who were never married single , aged 17 β 20 years and had knowledge of two routes of HIV transmission were more likely to have taken an HIV test. Males were more likely to take an HIV test in the future than females. Health education and HIV intervention programmes must not only provide accurate information, but must be made to help to equip private university students, especially females to test for HIV consistently.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article doi: Competing interest The author declares that there are no competing interests. Research has shown that the highest group found to be infected with the virus is the age-group 15 to 24 [ 2 ].
This adolescent high-risk group accounts for 60 percent of all new infections in many countries [ 3 ]. Research in Ghana indicates that the lifestyles of students on university campuses are placing them at risk of contracting the HIV [ 4 , 5 ] as the university environment has been shown to promote sexual activity among the general student population [ 6 , 7 ]. Additionally, the pressure from fellow students to live up to the standard such as buying latest mobile phones, expensive clothes, jewelry has been shown to influence young women to engage in transactional sex [ 8 , 9 ].
Further research has indicated that although knowledge about a disease is a prerequisite for change of behaviour, an increase in knowledge about HIV does not predict behavioural change [ 10 , 11 ]. Recent studies on HIV among young adults in Ghana has predominantly focused on public universities [ 5 ] with paucity of data on private university students, although there are about 30 private universities in Accra alone as indicated by the National Accreditation Board - a regulatory agency of the Ministry of Education that facilitates the establishment of both public and private tertiary institutions [ 12 ].
