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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2020 Jul;24(7):2220-2226.
doi: 10.1007/s10461-020-02809-1.

Few Aggressive or Violent Incidents are Associated with the Use of HIV Self-tests to Screen Sexual Partners Among Key Populations

Alex Carballo-Diéguez  1 , Rebecca Giguere  2 , Iván C Balán  1 , Curtis Dolezal  1 , William Brown 3rd  1   3   4   5 , Javier Lopez-Rios  1   6 , Alan Sheinfil  7 , Timothy Frasca  1 , Christine Rael  1 , Cody Lentz  1 , Raynier Crespo  8 , Catherine Cruz Torres  8 , Cheng-Shiun Leu  1 , Irma Febo  8
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Few Aggressive or Violent Incidents are Associated with the Use of HIV Self-tests to Screen Sexual Partners Among Key Populations

Alex Carballo-Diéguez et al. AIDS Behav. 2020 Jul.

Abstract
in English, Spanish

Men who have sex with men and transgender women who had multiple sexual partners in the prior 3 months participated in ISUM, a randomized, controlled trial of self- and partner-testing in New York City and San Juan, PR. Only 2% of screened participants were ineligible to enroll due to anticipating they would find it very hard to avoid or handle violence. The intervention group received free rapid HIV self-test kits. During the trial, 114 (88%) of intervention participants who were assessed at follow-up used self-tests with at least one potential partner. Only 6% of participants who asked a partner in person to test reported that at least one of their partners got physically violent, some in the context of sex work. In total, 16 (2%) partners reacted violently. Post-trial, only one participant reported finding it very hard to handle violence, and none found it very hard to avoid potential violence.

Hombres que tienen sexo con hombres y mujeres transgénero que habían tenido múltiples parejas sexuales en los tres meses previos participaron en “Te lo enseño”, un ensayo aleatorio controlado del uso del autotest con parejas sexuales en Nueva York y San Juan, PR. Sólo un 2% de los participantes resultó inelegible para inscribirse debido a anticipar que les sería muy difícil evitar o manejar una situación violenta. El grupo de intervención recibió gratis los autotest rápidos para el VIH. Durante el ensayo, 114 (88%) de los individuos asignados a la intervención que fueron evaluados en el seguimiento usaron el autotest con al menos una posible pareja sexual. Sólo un 6% de los participantes que le pidieron en persona a una pareja que se haga el test reportó que al menos una de sus parejas se puso violento a causa del pedido, algunos en el contexto del trabajo sexual. En total, 16 (2%) de las parejas tuvieron una reacción violenta. Después del ensayo, sólo un participante reportó que le fue muy difícil manejar la violencia y ninguno reportó dificultades para evitar la posible violencia.

Keywords: HIV self-test; MSM; Transgender women; Violence.

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References

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