The prevalence and factors of willingness to accept circumcision among MSM in Maanshan City, China

ABSTRACT

To investigate the prevalence of male circumcision and the willingness to undergo male circumcision and influencing factors among MSM in Maanshan City, we conducted a cross-sectional study from June 2016 to December 2019. Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) was used to recruit participants. Influential factors of willingness to accept circumcision were identified by a multivariable logistic regression model. The multivariable logistic regression model revealed that five variables were independent influential factors for willingness to participate. The factors include that used condoms during last anal intercourse (OR = 1.87, 95% CI:1.03–3.41, P = 0.04), sex with female sex partners (OR = 0.499, 95% CI:0.298–0.860, P = 0.012, level of education (junior college: OR = 0.413, 95% CI:0.200–0.854, P = 0.017; bachelor's degree or higher: OR = 0.442, 95% CI:0.208–0.938, P = 0.033), condom use during oral sex in the last six months (OR = 4.20, 95% CI:1.47–12.0, P = 0.007) and level of knowledge of PrEP (OR = 5.09, 95% CI:1.39–18.7, P = 0.014). Given the willingness of MSM to accept circumcision was low in China, establishing a proper understanding of circumcision is essential if it is to be used as a strategy to prevent HIV infection among MSM. Therefore, publicity and education on the operation should be strengthened to increase the willingness to undergo male circumcision.

KEYWORDS:

• MSM
• circumcision
• HIV
• acceptance willingness
• influencing factor

Acknowledgements

We thank all MSM participants investigators and site staff.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (The study was approved by Anhui Medical University Ethics Committee; study number 20200594) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Author contributions

FYG and QQR developed the study idea. ZXH, LJW and TG designed the study protocol. ZXH, LJW, WZW, GQ and GQS collected the data. ZXH, GQ, TG, and WZW carried out analysis and interpretation of data. ZXH and LJW drafted the manuscript. FYG and QQR verified the analytical methods and reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Consent participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Key Project of Natural Science Research in Universities of Anhui Province (KJ2020A0151).