Home-based HIV voluntary counselling and testing

The HIV/AIDS epidemic remains a significant global health problem, especially in developing countries. The rate of uptake of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) is low, and only about one in 10 eligible people have access to VCT in developing countries. Challenges of HIV testing include the difficulty of getting to testing sites and the cost of being tested. Researchers assumed that providing HIV testing or results or both in homes compared to in a healthcare facility would lead to higher uptake of HIV testing. This review attempted to evaluate this assumption. We found only one published study from developing countries and none from developed countries. The only study included in the review showed an increase in VCT uptake after home-based VCT intervention. Because of the limited evidence to date, however, further research is needed to evaluate if home-based VCT is better than facility-based VCT or other testing methods.