Category Archives: Determinants of Health
What palliative care-related problems do patients experience at HIV diagnosis? A systematic review of the evidence
CONTEXT: Palliative care is an essential element of HIV care throughout the disease trajectory, but there is a lack of information to guide clinical care at HIV diagnosis. OBJECTIVES: This...
Challenges, coping strategies, and recommendations related to the HIV services field in the HAART era: A systematic literature review of qualitative studies from the United States and Canada
Qualitative research methods have been utilized to study the nature of work in the HIV services field. Yet current literature lacks a Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Treatment (HAART) era compendium of...
Supervised and unsupervised self-testing for HIV in high- and low-risk populations: A systematic review.
BACKGROUND: Stigma, discrimination, lack of privacy, and long waiting times partly explain why six out of ten individuals living with HIV do not access facility-based testing. By circumventing these barriers,...
Economic and quality of life outcomes of antiretroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS in developing countries: A systematic literature review
The impacts of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on quality of life, mental health, labor productivity, and economic wellbeing for people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries are only beginning to be...
Systematic review exploring time trends in the association between educational attainment and risk of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa
OBJECTIVE: To assess the evidence that the association between educational attainment and risk of HIV infection is changing over time in sub-Saharan Africa. DESIGN AND METHODS: Systematic review of published...
Family-centred approaches to the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV
Prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programmes have traditionally been narrow in scope, targeting biomedical interventions during the perinatal period, rather than considering HIV as a family disease. This...
The measurement of spirituality in palliative care and the content of tools validated cross-culturally: A systematic review
CONTEXT: Despite the need to assess spiritual outcomes in palliative care, little is known about the properties of the tools currently used to do so. In addition, measures of spirituality...
A systematic review of heterosexual anal intercourse and its role in the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in Papua New Guinea
BACKGROUND: Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a high burden of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the highest adult HIV prevalence in the Pacific region. Despite this burden of disease, heterosexual...
A systematic review of qualitative findings on factors enabling and deterring uptake of HIV testing in Sub-Saharan Africa
BACKGROUND: Despite Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) being the epicenter of the HIV epidemic, uptake of HIV testing is not optimal. While qualitative studies have been undertaken to investigate factors influencing uptake...