You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 95, Issue 8
  • Uptake of peer-led venue-based HIV testing sites in Sweden aimed at men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans persons: a cross-sectional survey

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

Health services research
Original article
Uptake of peer-led venue-based HIV testing sites in Sweden aimed at men who have sex with men (MSM) and trans persons: a cross-sectional survey
  1. Susanne Strömdahl1,2,
  2. Jonas Hoijer3,4,
  3. Jaran Eriksen1,5
  1. 1 Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  2. 2 Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
  3. 3 Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala, Sweden
  4. 4 Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  5. 5 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  1. Correspondence to Dr Jaran Eriksen, Karolinska Institutet Department of Public Health Sciences, 171 77 Solna, Sweden; jaran.eriksen{at}ki.se

Abstract

Objectives HIV testing among high-risk groups is a key intervention to diagnose persons living unknowingly with HIV to enable linkage to care and effective antiretroviral treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the uptake of Testpoint, the first large-scale HIV testing programme in Sweden where peer, non-healthcare personnel offered venue-based testing. Testing was performed by staff from the Swedish Foundation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL Sweden) and testing was performed at the RFSL offices, gay clubs and gay cruising areas, as well as at various gay festivals. The test was a rapid test using capillary blood from a finger prick.

Methods A cross-sectional survey of all persons aged >18 years who came for HIV testing at one of Testpoint’s locations in Sweden between 1 February and 31 December 2016.

Results 595 respondents (96% response rate) were included. Five persons were diagnosed with HIV and referred for treatment and care. A fifth of participants had never tested for HIV before. More than half of the participants were foreign born and the median age was 31 years. About one-fifth of participants stated they would not have tested through the healthcare system if Testpoint was not available.

Conclusions Testpoint reached their target population of young, foreign-born men who have sex with men (MSM) as well as first time testers and persons who stated that they would not have tested within the healthcare system. Such peer HIV testing outside the healthcare setting is a possible way of increasing uptake of testing in high-risk groups.

  • HIV
  • MSM
  • testing
  • prevention
  • public health

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2019-054007

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Anna Maria Geretti

    • Contributors SS and JE contributed to the conception and design of the study. JE drafted the manuscript. JH and JE contributed to the analysis of the data. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the study, revised the manuscript and critically revised and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The study was conducted with financial support from the governmental grant ‘Insatser mot hiv/aids och andra smittsamma sjukdomar’ (Interventions against HIV/AIDS and other communicable illnesses) aiming at reaching the targets set in the national strategy against HIV/AIDS and other communicable illnesses (Prop. 2005/06:60).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval This study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (Reference number 2016/740-31/1).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Data are available upon reasonable request.