AEGiS-14IAC: Homosexual men switch to risky sex when perceiving decreased threat of HIV/AIDS due to HAART.

14th International AIDS Conference


Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

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Homosexual men switch to risky sex when perceiving decreased threat of HIV/AIDS due to HAART.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. ThOrD1453)

Stolte IG, Wit de JB, Dukers NH, Coutinho RA
Cluster of Infectious Diseases, Municipal Health Service Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

BACKGROUND: Optimistic treatment beliefs occurring due to availability of HAART are known to be associated with increased sexual risk behaviour among homosexual men (HM). However, these findings are based on cross sectional studies, where causality is not clear. This study therefore prospectively investigated the association between different treatment beliefs and changes in HIV-related sexual risk behaviour.

METHODS: Two waves of data collection (1999/2000) from the Amsterdam Cohort Study among younger (<35 years) HIV-negative HM were used. The analyses included 73 HM who reported (un)protected receptive anal intercourse with casual partners in both waves. Men were divided into four behavioural patterns (only risk (unprotected), only no risk (protected), switch to no risk and switch to risk). Four dimensions of treatment beliefs were defined, using factor analysis. Perceived HIV/AIDS threat (TH), perceived need for condom use (NC), perceived effectiveness of HAART (EF), and perceived optimal start of HAART (ST). Multinomial logistic regression was used to predict behavioural patterns depending on the four dimensions of treatment beliefs.

RESULTS: Results show that 16 (22%) of 73 HM were in the 'only risk' group, 8 (11%) switched to risk, 11 (15%) switched to no risk and 38 (52%) were in the 'only no risk' group. Decreasing threat was found to have a significant effect in the group that switched from no risk to risk, compared to the 'only non-risk group' (OR: 2.98 [95%CI: 1.42-6.26]).

CONCLUSIONS: Although causality is very difficult to determine, the longitudinal nature of this study supports the hypothesis of causality between treatment beliefs and switch to HIV-related sexual risk behaviour. Especially decreasing HIV/AIDS threat due to HAART availability causes homosexual men to switch to unprotected receptive anal intercourse with casual partners, which is important to consider in developing effective prevention activities.

Keywords: AEGIS, Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active, Homosexuality, HIV Infections, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Coitus, Sex Behavior, HIV Seropositivity, Safe Sex, Cross-Sectional Studies, Cohort Studies, Human, MaleKWDaegis,antiretroviraltherapy,highlyactive,homosexuality,hivinfections,acquiredimmunodeficiencysyndrome,coitus,sexbehavior,hivseropositivity,safesex,cross-sectionalstudies,cohortstudies,human,male

020707
ThOrD1453

Copyright © 2002 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.