Medical and Pharmacy Students' Awareness, Knowledge, and Attitudes Toward Injectable HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP)

Ending the HIV epidemic in the United States will require increasing the uptake of HIV biomedical prevention strategies, such as injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). One avenue to potentially increase injectable PrEP prescriptions is to educate the next generation of healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to examine injectable PrEP knowledge, awareness, and willingness to perform injectable PrEP-related clinical activities among medical and pharmacy students. From November 2022-January 2023, we conducted a web-based, cross-sectional observational study among 395 medical and pharmacy students from one public university in New York State. The survey assessed injectable PrEP awareness, knowledge, familiarity with injectable PrEP prescribing guidelines, comfort performing injectable PrEP-related clinical activities, and willingness to perform injectable PrEP-related activities. Overall, participants reported low injectable PrEP awareness, knowledge, and familiarity with prescribing guidelines. Despite this, participants reported relatively high levels of comfort with performing injectable PrEP-related tasks. While there were no statistically significant differences in domains of interest, pharmacy students reported greater awareness, knowledge, familiarity with prescribing guidelines, and comfort performing injectable PrEP-related tasks. Linear regression models illustrated that pharmacy students were statistically significantly less willing to initiate a conversation about injectable PrEP with eligible patients compared to medical students. Future healthcare providers will play a pivotal role in implementing new biomedical prevention strategies for HIV, including injectable PrEP. Results illustrate the need for additional educational programs to increase injectable PrEP knowledge among health professional students.