Four years later: Do South Africans know what pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV is?

ABSTRACT

HIV incidence remains high among South Africans, with low uptake of preventative measures such as condom use. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which protects HIV-negative individuals from infection, was first introduced in SA in 2016. This study determined the knowledge of PrEP among university students (n = 282) and primary health care clinic users (n = 358) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey. The study population was at high-risk of HIV infection, with early age of sexual debut, multiple concurrent sexual partners and inconsistent condom usage. Only 12.3% (n = 79) stated that they had a full understanding of PrEP, which was higher among university students (9.8%; n = 63) than clinic users (2.5%; n = 16; p < 0.001). Specific PrEP knowledge was, however, low. Health Science students did not have a better knowledge than students from other faculties. Neither did users of clinics offering PrEP have a better knowledge than users of clinics not offering PrEP. Moreover, few participants (15%; n = 96) were aware of the availability of PrEP at their local clinic. Interventions to address the low level of PrEP knowledge within the population are required, to reduce the high HIV incidence.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV prevention
• clinic users
• pre-exposure prophylaxis
• South Africa
• students

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Department of Health, South Africa and the Durban University of Technology for providing permission to conduct the study. We are thankful to Senzo Mpangase for assisting with the data collection. We would like to thank all the participants for answering the questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation, ZA [grant number 99315] to F Haffejee. J Basdav and O Fasanmi-Kana were supported as interns by the National Research Foundation, ZA.