Table 1.

Characteristics of 250 male and female HIV-positive individuals from Chennai and Vellore, Tamil Nadu, enrolled from December 2007 to July 2008

Characteristics	Male (n=124)		Female (n=126)		p-value (test statistic)
	n	%	n	%
Site					0.877 (0.02)3
Chennai (Urban)	75	60.5	75	59.5
Vellore (Semi-rural)	49	39.5	51	40.5
Age (Years)	36.78±5.21		32.92±6.1		<0.001 (30.85)3
18 – 29	10	8.1	39	31.2
30 – 34	30	24.4	40	32.0
35 – 39	44	35.8	30	24.0
40 +	39	31.7	16	12.8
Education					0.068 (7.14)3
Illiterate	6	5.0	12	9.5
Primary	20	16.8	31	24.6
Middle	67	56.3	68	54.0
High School & above	26	21.9	15	11.9
Marital Status					<0.001 (92.21)3
Married	92	74.2	38	30.1
Single	19	15.3	2	1.6
Separated/Divorced	7	5.7	21	16.7
Widow/Widower	6	4.8	65	51.6
Living Situation					0.0194
Alone	14	11.3	9	7.1
With own family apart from parents or in-laws	77	62.1	61	48.4
With parents or in-laws family	31	25.0	55	43.7
With friends	2	1.6	1	0.8
HIV related characteristics
Mode of infection					<0.0014
Intravenous drug use	23	18.9	-	-
Sexual intercourse	57	46.7	111	88.1
Maternal to child transmission	1	0.8	1	0.8
Contaminated blood products	7	5.7	5	4.0
Don’t Know	34	27.9	9	7.1
When Diagnosed with HIV					0.0114
In the past 3 months	4	3.2	-	-
3 months to 1 year ago	15	12.1	8	6.4
1–5 years ago	66	53.2	58	46.0
>5 years ago	39	31.5	60	47.6
Disclosure to Romantic partner or Sexual partner					0.290 (1.12)3
Yes	88	71.5	96	77.4
No	35	28.5	28	22.6
Medication currently receiving					<0.0014
Antibiotics	5	4.6	1	0.9
Vitamins	14	13.0	52	43.3
Siddha-medicines2	5	4.6	-	-
Anti-retroviral therapy	84	77.8	67	55.8

¹Mean±SD;

²South Indian Traditional medicine;

³chi square test statistic;

⁴Fisher’s exact test (no test statistic generated).