HIV PREVALENCE AND RISK-FACTORS IN UNIVERSITY-STUDENTS

Objective: To estimate HIV prevalence and risks in university students . Design: Anonymous self-completion questionnaire and samples. Setting : University students at matriculation. Participants: All first and th ird year undergraduates and newly registering postgraduates at the Uni versity of Edinburgh, Scotland. Main outcome measures: HIV prevalence, sexual behaviour, condom use, drug use.Results: The questionnaire res ponses were used to classify the 4665 respondents into four groups, or dered by risk of HIV positivity, and a sample of 2041 was selected for testing. All of the top two risk groups were tested (217 and 758 test s, respectively) as well as a random sample of the others. Five positi ve HIV-antibody tests were detected, all from the highest risk group. This gives an estimated rate of 1.2 per 1000 (95% confidence interval, 0.4-2.9) for all respondents. Only one of the five HIV-positives had been tested for HIV. The factors associated with HIV positivity were r esidence in Africa, intravenous drug use and male homosexuality. Overa ll, 74% of respondents reported ever having had sexual intercourse and this rate was the same for men and women. Reported intravenous drug u se was very low: 0.5% for men and 0.1% for women. Condom use was more common for partners of short acquaintance, but unrelated to the number of sexual partners in the last year. Conclusions: There was no eviden ce of the spread of HIV infection beyond known high-risk groups in thi s population. This may be a result of relatively low levels of HIV ris k-taking behaviour in the majority of respondents.