Prevalence and factors associated with fertility desires among HIV-positive MSM

ABSTRACT

The National surveillance data showed that homosexual transmission played a considerable role in new HIV infections in China. The emphasis on antiretroviral therapy and prevention of mother-to-child transmission provided chances for reproduction among people living with HIV/AIDS. Issues of fertility desire have a paucity of data among HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM). This cross-sectional study has assessed fertility attitudes and associated factors, as well as the reproductive knowledge among HIV-positive MSM. Analysis was mainly based on the multinomial regression model. The study included 129 participants, and almost all of the participants (96.1%) were between 18 and 30 years old and 82.2% of them were single. About 35.6% expressed a fertility desire. MSM without siblings tended to have fertility desire (OR = 0.236, 95%CI: 0.078∼0.712, p = 0.010). Surrogacy (36.4%) was the most desired method among the 86 respondents who had the desire or did not make a decision. While the accuracy of the reproductive knowledge was only 69.6%. In summary, we recommend that providers offer much more professional information and develop assisted reproductive technology to meet the reproductive aspirations of HIV-positive MSM.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• MSM
• fertility desire

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to J Han, HX Zhao for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. We thank the patients who participated in the research.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals’ Ascent Plan (DFL20191802); Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals Clinical Medicine Development of Special Funding Support (ZYLX202126); High-level public health technical personnel construction project (2022-3-036).