Growing up positive: adolescent HIV disclosure to sexual partners and others

ABSTRACT

Over three million youth live with HIV worldwide. Very little is known about whether youth disclose their HIV status to family, friends or sexual partners, and what risks and benefits may accrue from doing so. This study characterizes HIV disclosure among 250 youth with perinatally-acquired HIV (PHIV; age 13–24 years) living in Soweto, South Africa. A third had self-disclosed their HIV status to at least one person; similarly, only a third of sexually-active PHIV had disclosed their HIV status to their most recent partner. It is not clear whether HIV disclosure alone leads to positive impact: we found perceived social support from the family was negatively associated with disclosure (aOR 0.81, 95% 0.70–0.94). PHIV who spoke to a provider about disclosure were more likely to share their HIV status with a sexual partner (aOR 2.48; 95% CI 1.28–4.81). However, those PHIV who disclosed their status were no more likely to use a condom. The World Health Organization recommends that health providers advise adolescent patients on safe disclosure, but we still lack evidence on the consequences for young people and effective tools to help them weigh benefits and risks.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• perinatal infection
• South Africa
• disclosure
• youth

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21HD083032 and supported by the South African Medical Research Council. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health or the South African Medical Research Council.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health [grant number R21HD083032] and supported by the South African Medical Research Council.