Barriers and Facilitators to HIV Testing Among Women

The purpose of this secondary analysis was to analyze for barriers and facilitators to HIV testing in women attending community health clinics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported that all women account for 20% or 1 in 5 of new HIV cases (CDC, 2012). Of those new cases in heterosexual women, 5,300 were Black, 1,300 were White, and 1,200 were Hispanic/Latina. The CDC estimated that in 2012 there were 9,268 individuals living with a diagnosis of HIV or AIDS, of which 19% were women.

The existing de-identified data consisted of thirty individual interviews conducted using a semi-structured interview guide was collected as the initial phase of the parent study, "HIV Testing and Women's Attitudes on HIV Vaccine Trials". This secondary analysis addressed the identification of key obstacles to HIV testing and only those related portions of the transcripts were analyzed. The major themes identified were familiarity with testing, stigma, fear, perceived risks, and access to care.

The themes implicated the need to further assess women for barriers and facilitators to testing, tailor community based interventions that have the ability to decrease fear and stigma, increase trust in testing methods and offer counseling to positive results.