Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Feb 8, 2024
Date Accepted: Sep 16, 2024
Communication of HIV serostatus is associated with frequent HIV testing and self-testing among Internet-based MSM in Zhejiang, China: a cross-sectional study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Men who have sex with men (MSM) are increasingly using Internet to meet casual sexual partners. Internet-based MSM have higher sexual risk and have a greater likelihood of sexually transmitted infections compared to non-Internet-based MSM. However, little is known about the patterns, associations of frequent HIV testing and self-testing in Internet-based MSM.
Objective:
We examined HIV serostatus communication, and perceptions of the HIV infection risk posed by Internet-based partners and their relationships with frequent HIV testing and self-testing among Internet-based MSM.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted from May 2018 to April 2019 in Zhejiang Province, China. The study participants were assigned male at birth, had had sex with another male, were aged 18 years and above, had had casual sex with partners found via Internet in the last 6 months, and were HIV-negative. Information was obtained on HIV testing behavior, along with demographic characteristics, HIV-related knowledge, Internet-based behaviors, homosexual sex, communication of HIV serostatus, and perceptions of the HIV infection risk posed by Internet-based partners. Uni- and multivariate logistic regression models were used to measure the associations of HIV testing and self-testing.
Results:
The study recruited 281 individuals who using the Internet to seek casual sexual partners in the past 6 months. Of the participants, 61.9% (174/281) reported frequent HIV testing (with ≥ 2 testing) and 50.9% (119/234; 47 with missing values) reported frequent HIV self-testing. MSM who always or mostly communicated about the HIV serostatus of Internet-based partners in the past 6 months had 3.494 (95% CI 1.990–6.136) and 2.558 (95% CI 1.487–4.400) times higher odds of ever being tested or self-tested for HIV, respectively, compared to those who communicated about this issue minimally or not at all.
Conclusions:
Frequent HIV testing and HIV self-testing were low among Internet-based MSM. HIV serostatus communication should be improved in virtue of gay dating applications for Internet-based MSM to promote HIV frequent HIV testing.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.