Teaching interventions in a clinical degree programme to help address the UNAIDS HIV elimination targets

Abstract

General awareness in chemoprophylactic preventive methods amongst undergraduate students enrolled in our two clinical science programmes at De Montfort University (DMU, Leicester, UK) was found to be very poor. To tackle this we delivered a highly dynamic workshop in our level 4 module of Basic Microbiology in 2019/20 (n=230), BSc Biomedical Science (BMS), aimed at facilitating student acquisition of the following skills/knowledge: a) correct use of sexual barriers and available HIV chemoprophylaxis methods; b) frequency of sexual checks and use of available vaccines according to sexual behaviour and sex life; and c) tailor evidence-based public health interventions to avoid people living with HIV (PLHIV) from developing AIDS. Qualitive and quantitative (validated feedback-questionnaire) methods were used to evaluate our teaching intervention. Ninety BMS students voluntarily provided comprehensive feedback. A large majority highlighted that they learnt how to establish public health interventions to reduce HIV transmission. The workshop seemed to facilitate acquisition of knowledge on the appropriate use of condoms/barriers, as students unveiled important errors and gaps in their knowledge of the use of barriers in a preliminary test in form of a quiz. In conclusion, the improved workshop would seem to be effective for promoting sexual and public health education, acquisition of knowledge of HIV chemoprophylaxis tools available and how to minimise opportunistic pathogen infections in PLHIV.