“Just felt so convenient and warm by the non-profit help”. Optimizing HIV self-test secondary distribution among men who have sex with men in China

ABSTRACT

Secondary distribution of HIV self-test is promising to increase testing uptake while the facilitators and barriers of secondary distribution remain unclear. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 MSM who had participated in secondary distribution of HIVST in southern China. Data were thematically analyzed to capture participants’ motivations, procedures, and challenges when accessing and distributing self-tests. MSM in China are willing to distribute HIVST to members in their social network, but their decision-making is impacted by their ability to broach sexual health conversations, evaluations of the recipients, and perceived trustworthiness of the self-test. Our study suggested that several strategies, including creating a friendly environment for sexual health conversations and establishing nationwide policies related to quality assured self-tests and standardized self-testing protocols, may be helpful to advance this approach in China.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• self-testing
• men who have sex with men
• China

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the staff members and volunteers at Zhuhai Xutong Voluntary Services Center, whose organization made secondary distribution pilot study in Zhuhai and interviews with Zhuhai participants possible. We are very grateful to all participants in the two secondary distribution studies and who agreed to share their experiences with us.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2017YFE0103800]; Academy of Medical Sciences and the Newton Fund [grant number NIF\R1\181020]; the National Nature Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 81903371, 81772240]; the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers NIAID 1R01AI114310-01, NIAID K24AI143471], NIMH [grant numbers R34MH109359, R34MH119963], Zhuhai Medical and Health Science and Technology Plan Project [grant number 20181117A010064], and Guangdong Medical Science and Technology Research Fund [grant number A2020509].