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Observational Study
. 2019 Jul-Aug;30(4):428-439.
doi: 10.1097/JNC.0000000000000004.

Female Condom Use and Its Acceptability Among HIV-serodiscordant Couples in China

Lahong Ju  1 , Cynthia X Shi, Fan Lv, Houlin Tang, Gang Zeng, Peng Xu, Wanying Chen, Huijing He, Liping Ma, Linglin Zhang, Xi Chen
Affiliations
Observational Study

Female Condom Use and Its Acceptability Among HIV-serodiscordant Couples in China

Lahong Ju et al. J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care. 2019 Jul-Aug.

Abstract

Intimate partners of people living with HIV are at risk of HIV infection. We assessed the acceptability of female condom use among 89 married, heterosexual, HIV-serodiscordant couples from Sichuan and Hunan provinces in China for this prospective observational cohort study. Participants used female condoms for 3 months, reporting use and attitudes in written logs and questionnaires. At the end of the study, 58.4% of couples expressed willingness to continue using female condoms. Factors associated with willingness to use female condoms were (a) the female partner reporting having experienced forced sex by the male partner, (b) applying a lubricant to the penis, (c) understanding the correct application method, (d) being married more than 20 years, and (e) experiencing no difficulty during the first use. Most HIV-serodiscordant couples found female condoms to be acceptable. Increasing access to female condoms could be an acceptable alternative barrier method to male condoms for preventing HIV transmission.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures

The authors report no real or perceived vested interests that relate to this article that could be construed as a conflict of interest.

Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
O’Lavie female condom by Shanghai Medical Apparatus Company, Ltd. (Dahua).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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