TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2018//
TI  - Intimate partner violence and antiretroviral therapy initiation among female sex workers newly diagnosed with HIV in Zambia: a prospective study
JO  - Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes
A1  - Oldenburg, Catherine E.
A1  - Ortblad, Katrina F.
A1  - Chanda, Michael M.
A1  - Mwale, Magdalene
A1  - Chongo, Steven
A1  - Kanchele, Catherine
A1  - Kamungoma, Nyambe
A1  - Fullem, Andrew
A1  - Bärnighausen, Till
SP  - 435
EP  - 439
VL  - 79
IS  - 4
N2  - BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence (IPV) is common among female sex workers (FSW) globally. Here, we prospectively assessed the relationship between IPV and engagement in HIV care in a cohort of FSW who had been newly diagnosed with HIV. <br><br>METHODS: Data arose from the Zambian Peer Educators for HIV Self-Testing study, a randomized controlled trial of HIV self-test distribution among FSW in three transit towns in Zambia. Participants were self-reported to be HIV-uninfected or unaware of their status at baseline. IPV in the previous 12 months was assessed at baseline. At four months, participants were asked the results of their last HIV test and those who reported testing positive were asked if they had engaged in HIV-related care and started antiretroviral therapy. <br><br>RESULTS: Of 964 participants, 234 (24.3%) reported that they were living with HIV at four months. Of these 234 participants, 142 (60.7%) reported a history of IPV (past 12 months) at baseline and at four months, 152 (65.0%) reported they were in HIV-related care and 132 (56.7%) reported they had initiated ART. Participants who reported IPV had significantly reduced odds of engagement in care (aOR=0.48, 95% CI 0.26 to 0.91) and ART initiation (aOR=0.40, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.72). <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: FSW living with HIV in Zambia reported very high rates of IPV. Structural and individual interventions for violence prevention are urgently needed to better protect this population. Given the strong negative relationship between IPV and engagement in HIV-related care, such interventions could also substantially improve HIV-related health outcomesThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1525-4135
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000001841
ID  - ref1
ER  -