Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Dec 5, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 25, 2019 - Oct 25, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 19, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Gay-Friendly Physician Finder: Acceptability and Feasibility of a Crowdsourced Physician Finder Prototype Platform for Men Who Have Sex with Men in China
ABSTRACT
Background:
Men who have sex with men (MSM), including both gay and bisexual men, have a high prevalence of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in China. However, healthcare seeking behaviors and engagement in clinical services among MSM are often suboptimal. Global evidence shows that embedding online HIV/sexual health services into gay social networking applications holds promise for facilitating higher rates of health care utilization among MSM. We developed a prototype of a gay-friendly health services platform, designed for integration within a popular gay social networking app (Blued) in China.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acceptability of the platform and solicit user feedback through focus group interviews with young MSM in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, cities in Southern China.
Methods:
Methods:
The prototype was developed through a national crowdsourcing open contest. Crowdsourcing open contests solicit community input on a topic in order to identify potential improvements and implement creative solutions. The prototype included a local gay-friendly STI physician finder tool and online psychological consulting services. Semi-structured focus group discussions were conducted with MSM to solicit their feedback on the platform, and a short survey was administered following discussions. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data in NVivo. We developed a codebook based on the first interview. Double coding was conducted, and discrepancies were discussed with a third individual until consensus was reached. We carried out descriptive analysis of the survey data.
Results:
A total of 34 participants attended four focus group discussions. The mean age was 27.3 years old (SD=4.6). Thirty-two (94.1%) obtained at least university education and 29 (85.3%) men had seen a doctor at least once before. Our survey results indicated that 24 (70.6%) participants had interest in using the online health services platform and 25(73.5%) thought that the system was easy to use. Qualitative data also revealed that there was a high demand for gay-friendly healthcare services which could facilitate care seeking. Men felt that the platform could bridge gaps in the existing HIV/STI service delivery system, specifically by identifying local gay-friendly physicians and counselors, providing access to online physician consultation and psychological counseling services, creating space for peer support, and distributing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and sexual health education.
Conclusions:
Crowdsourcing can help develop a community-centered online platform linking MSM to local gay-friendly HIV/STI services. Further research on developing social-media based platforms for MSM and evaluating the effectiveness of such platforms may be useful for improving sexual health outcomes.
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