Malgré les différents plans mis en place jusqu’ici pour lutter contre le Virus d’Immunodéficience Humaine (VIH), la prévalence mondiale de cette maladie continue d’augmenter. À l’heure où l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies se fixe pour objectif de mettre un terme à l’épidémie du sida dans le monde d’ici à 2030, faire l’état des lieux des principaux facteurs impliqués dans l’adhésion à la démarche de dépistage s’impose. En effet, la connaissance des facteurs, facilitant ou freinant la réalisation d’un test de dépistage, permet de rendre plus efficaces les messages de prévention qui visent à encourager la connaissance de son statut sérologique. À partir des revues de la littérature déjà établies, ont été dégagés les principaux facteurs psychologiques incitant à réaliser ou non un test de dépistage du VIH. Cet article a pour objectif de rendre compte de l’impact des facteurs psychologiques dans le domaine du dépistage du VIH.

Despite of regional, national and international plans which have been implemented to struggle against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the global prevalence of this disease continues to increase. While the General Assembly of the United Nations is aiming at putting an end to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in the world by 2030, it appears necessary to draw up the list of the main factors involved in the HIV test process. Indeed, a better knowledge of the factors, facilitating or hindering the uptake of a HIV screening test, enables to make more effective prevention campaigns which aim at improving people's knowledge of their serological status. The purpose of this article is to underline the impact of psychological factors involved in the HIV test process. From the literature reviews already established, the main psychological factors, facilitating or hindering the uptake of a HIV screening test have been identified.

The databases PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, MEDLINE, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection were consulted between March 2016 and February 2017, with the use of key words, to search for articles published between 2005 and 2017 on the main levers and barriers to HIV testing. From the 332 references listed with these criteria, 25 articles were retained including 5 articles in which the authors make literature reviews or meta-analyses.

The main levers and barriers to HIV testing noted in the literature are socio-demographic, contextual, relational, or related to more psychological factors: behavioral, cognitive and emotional factors. Concerning socio-demographic factors, having a high level of education and suffering from the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases facilitate HIV testing. Among behavioral factors, the main barrier to HIV testing is having previously realized a negative test, while the main lever is being involved in high-risk behaviors (multiple partners, drug injection). At cognitive level, the main barriers are: minimizing the personal risk incurred, not being well aware the usefulness of the HIV testing, lacking of knowledge about modes of transmission, HIV testing and treatments, ignoring where HIV testing centers are. Conversely, knowing the benefits of treatment, having HIV education and a positive attitude towards HIV testing are HIV testing facilitators. Concerning emotional factors, the main obstacles to the realization of HIV screening are the fear of results, the fear of stigma and discrimination related to HIV status or HIV testing, and the fear of lack of confidentiality.

Psychological factors (behavioral, cognitive and emotional) are largely involved in adherence to the screening process, with socio-demographic factors. These results show the impossibility of isolating the different factors potentially involved in the screening process to account for the complexity of human behavior in such a context. The decision of submitting oneself to HIV testing is therefore part of the Transactional, Integrative and Multifactorial Model. Otherwise, the study of the literature reveals that research on the psychological factors associated with HIV testing are essentially cross-sectional and that none of them studies the involvement of psychological factors in the context of screening. This topic, which is the subject of ongoing research, deserves to be studied to better understand the implication of psychological factors once the decision is taken to carry out an HIV test.