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Use of Rapid HIV Self-Test to Screen Potential Sexual Partners: Results of the ISUM Study

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Abstract

ISUM (“I’ll show you mine”) was a randomized controlled trial in which 272 transgender women and men who have sex with men in New York, NY (NYC) and San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU) were assigned to an intervention group (n = 136), in which they had access to free HIV self-testing (ST) kits, or to a control group (n = 136). The trial aimed to determine whether the intervention group would use ST to screen sexual partners and have fewer condomless anal intercourse (CAI) occasions with serodiscordant or unknown status partners than the control group. The intervention group had on average 10 (32%) fewer CAI occasions; though clinically relevant, this difference fell short of statistical significance (p = .08). In NYC (n = 166) intervention participants had significantly fewer CAI occasions, whereas in SJU (n = 106) they reported non-significantly more CAI occasions. Two devastating hurricanes hit SJU during the study and may have impacted results in unmeasured ways.

Resumen

Te lo (“Te lo enseño”) fue un ensayo aleatorio controlado en el cual 272 mujeres transgénero y hombres que tienen sexo con hombres en la ciudad de Nueva York (NYC) y San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU) fueron asignados a un grupo de la intervención (n=136), en el cual fueron provistos del autotest de VIH (ST) gratis, o a un grupo de control (n=136). El ensayo fue diseñado para determinar si los participantes del grupo de intervención usarían ST para testear a parejas sexuales potenciales y tendrían menos ocasiones de sexo anal sin condones (CAI) con parejas serodiscordantes o con un estatus desconocido comparados con los participantes en el grupo de control. El grupo de la intervención tuvo como promedio 10 (32%) ocasiones menos de CAI que el grupo de control; sin embargo, esta diferencia no tuvo significancia estadística (p = .08). En NYC (n=166) los participantes del grupo de la intervención tuvieron significativamente menos ocasiones de CAI que el grupo de control, mientras que en SJU (n=106), reportaron un número de ocasiones de CAI mayor, aunque la diferencia no tuvo significación estadística. Dos huracanes devastadores afectaron a SJU durante el estudio y esto pudo haber impactado los resultados de la intervención de maneras no medidas.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the study participants for their time and effort. This work is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institutes of Health [R01 HD076636] PI: Carballo-Diéguez]. The HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies is funded by an NIMH center grant [P30-MH43520 PI: Remien]. William Brown III was supported by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) [grant numbers R01-LM012355 PI: Schillinger, T15-LM007079 PI: Hripcsak, R01-LM013045 PI: Lyles], the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) [grant number P60-MD006902 PI: Bibbins-Domingo], the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) [grant number K12-HS026383], and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the NIH [UCSF-CTSI grant number KL2-TR001870] during various stages of the research and/or preparation of the article. Sarah Iribarren was supported by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) [grant numbers T32 NR014205 PI: Stone, K23NR017210 PI: Iribarren] during various stages of the research and/or preparation of the article. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NICHD, NIMH, NLM, NIMHD, or the NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Gender, Sexuality and Health, HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, NY State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 15, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Alex Carballo-Diéguez, Rebecca Giguere, Iván C. Balán, William Brown III, Curtis Dolezal, Cheng-Shiun Leu, Javier Lopez Rios, Timothy Frasca, Christine Tagliaferri Rael & Cody Lentz

  2. Department of Medicine, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    William Brown III

  3. Bakar Computational Health Science Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    William Brown III

  4. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Center for Vulnerable Populations at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    William Brown III

  5. Department of Biostatistics (in Psychiatry), Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Cheng-Shiun Leu

  6. Department of Community Health and Social Sciences, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York, NY, USA

    Javier Lopez Rios

  7. Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Alan Z. Sheinfil

  8. Department of Pediatrics, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, PR, USA

    Raynier Crespo, Catherine Cruz Torres & Irma Febo

  9. Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Sarah Iribarren

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Carballo-Diéguez, A., Giguere, R., Balán, I.C. et al. Use of Rapid HIV Self-Test to Screen Potential Sexual Partners: Results of the ISUM Study. AIDS Behav 24, 1929–1941 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-019-02763-7

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