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Accuracy of Self-Reported HIV Status Among African Men and Transgender Women Who Have Sex with Men Who were Screened for Participation in a Research Study: HPTN 075

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Abstract

Some HIV-infected individuals in research studies may choose not to disclose knowledge of their HIV status to study staff. We evaluated the accuracy of self-reported HIV status among African men and transgender women who have sex with men and who were screened for a research study. Sixty-seven of 183 HIV-infected participants reported a prior HIV diagnosis. Samples from the remaining 116 participants were tested for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Thirty-six of the 116 participants had ARV drugs detected, indicating that they were on antiretroviral treatment; these participants were classified as previously diagnosed based on ARV drug testing. Among participants classified as previously diagnosed, disclosure of a prior HIV diagnosis varied among study sites (p = 0.006) and was more common among those who reported having sex with men only (p = 0.002). ARV drug testing in addition to self-report improves the accuracy for identifying individuals with a prior HIV diagnosis.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the HPTN 075 study team and participants for providing the samples and data used in this study. We also thank the laboratory staff who helped with sample management and testing. This work was supported by the grants from the Division of AIDS of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the Office of AIDS Research of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) [UM1-AI068613 (Eshleman); UM1-AI068617 (Donnell); and UM1-AI068619 (Cohen/El-Sadr)]. Dr. Sandfort also received support from an NIMH Grant, to the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Research, P30-MH42520 (Remien).

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Author notes

  1. Jessica M. Fogel and Theodorus Sandfort have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Jessica M. Fogel, Yinfeng Zhang, William Clarke, Autumn Breaud, Vanessa Cummings & Susan H. Eshleman

  2. HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Theodorus Sandfort

  3. Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Xu Guo & Ying Q. Chen

  4. Science Facilitation Department, FHI 360, Durham, NC, USA

    Erica L. Hamilton

  5. Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) CDC, Kisumu, Kenya

    Arthur Ogendo

  6. College of Medicine - Johns Hopkins Project, Blantyre, Malawi

    Noel Kayange

  7. Perinatal HIV Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, Soweto HPTN CRS, Soweto, South Africa

    Ravindre Panchia

  8. Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, UCT Medical School, Cape Town, South Africa

    Karen Dominguez

  9. Department of Pathology, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Ross Building, Room 646, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

    Susan H. Eshleman

Authors
  1. Jessica M. Fogel
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  2. Theodorus Sandfort
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  3. Yinfeng Zhang
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  4. Xu Guo
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  5. William Clarke
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  7. Vanessa Cummings
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  11. Ravindre Panchia
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  12. Karen Dominguez
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  13. Ying Q. Chen
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  14. Susan H. Eshleman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susan H. Eshleman.

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Conflict of interest

None of the authors has a financial or personal relationship with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work, with the following exceptions: Susan Eshleman has collaborated on research studies with investigators from Abbott; Abbott has provided reagents for collaborative research studies.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Fogel, J.M., Sandfort, T., Zhang, Y. et al. Accuracy of Self-Reported HIV Status Among African Men and Transgender Women Who Have Sex with Men Who were Screened for Participation in a Research Study: HPTN 075. AIDS Behav 23, 289–294 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2231-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2231-1

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