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HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing: Knowledge, Beliefs, Concerns and Practices among Students

Abstract The study sought to explore university students‘ perceptions of the Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) programme. Ninety-nine Black African students were randomly selected from a class of students majoring in psychology to take part in the survey. A questionnaire was used to gather data on the students’ perceptions of VCT. Data were analysed in terms of response frequencies and percentages. The study showed that most of the participants knew about the VCT programme that was offered by both the government and private organisations. The students indicated that the VCT programme was important because they were vulnerable to HIV infection. However, most of the students in this study reported that they were not testing for HIV because of leakage of results, fear of knowing their status, stigmatisation and labelling. Participants reported that peer educators, radio and television were their source of information for HIV prevention. Further research with a larger sample is recommended to get generalisable results.