Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
BMC Public Health. 2021 Nov 9;21(1):2048. doi: 10.1186/s12889-021-12011-0.
HIV self-testing was proved as an effective tool for increasing testing frequency in gay and bisexual men at high risk of infection. Questions remain about understanding why HIVST encouraged testing and how such success can be translated to programmatic implementation.
We conducted a qualitative investigation of how FORTH participants experienced and perceived HIVST. Stratified sampling was used to recruit gay and bisexual men participating in the FORTH HIVST intervention to take part in interviews, focusing on infrequent testers and those who had received inaccurate HIVST results.
Our analysis identified several prominent themes organized into two overarching domains from the 15 interviews: (i) aspects of HIVST contributing to HIV testing frequency, and (ii) sustaining HIVST into the future. Participants also believed that their use of HIVST in the future would depend on the test kit's reliability, particularly when compared with highly reliable clinic-based testing.
HIVST increases the frequency of HIV testing among gay and bisexual men due, in part, to the practical, psychological, and social benefits it offers. To capitalize fully on these benefits, however, strategies to ensure the availability of highly reliable HIVST are required to sustain benefits beyond the confines of a structured research study.
HIV 自我检测已被证明是增加感染高风险的男同性恋和双性恋者检测频率的有效工具。人们仍然不清楚为什么 HIVST 鼓励检测，以及如何将这种成功转化为项目实施。
我们对 FORTH 参与者体验和感知 HIVST 的方式进行了定性调查。采用分层抽样招募参与 FORTH HIVST 干预的男同性恋和双性恋者参加访谈，重点关注检测频率较低的参与者和那些收到不准确 HIVST 结果的参与者。
我们的分析从 15 次访谈中确定了几个突出的主题，这些主题组织成两个总体领域：(i) HIVST 有助于 HIV 检测频率的因素，以及 (ii) 未来维持 HIVST。参与者还认为，他们未来是否会使用 HIVST 将取决于检测试剂盒的可靠性，尤其是与高度可靠的诊所检测相比。
HIVST 增加了男同性恋和双性恋者的 HIV 检测频率，部分原因是它提供了实际、心理和社会方面的好处。然而，要充分利用这些好处，需要确保高度可靠的 HIVST 的可用性，以维持研究之外的益处。
