2 research outputs found
âNever testing for HIVâ among Men who have Sex with Men in Viet Nam: results from an internet-based cross-sectional survey
Š 2013 GarcĂa et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background
Men who have sex with men in Viet Nam have been under-studied as a high-risk group for HIV infection, and this populationâs percentage and determinants of HIV testing have not been comprehensively investigated.
Methods
A national Internet-based survey of self-reported sexual and health seeking behaviours was conducted between August and October 2011 with 2077 Vietnamese men who had sex with men in the last twelve months to identify the frequency of ânever testing for HIVâ among Internet-using MSM living in Viet Nam, as well as the factors associated with this HIV-related high-rish behavior. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the demographic characteristics and behaviours predicting never testing for HIV.
Results
A total of 76.5% of men who have sex with men who were surveyed reported never having been voluntarily tested for HIV. Predictors of never being tested included having a monthly income less than VND 5 Million, being a student, using the Internet less than 15 hour per week, and not participating in a behavioural HIV intervention.
Conclusions
Never testing for HIV is common among Internet-using men who have sex with men in Viet Nam. Given the dangerously high prevalence of this high-risk behaviour, our findings underscore the urgent need for segmented and targeted HIV prevention, care and treatment strategies, focusing on drastically reducing the number of men who have sex with men never testing for HIV in Viet Nam