Willingness on accepting the short-message-service and factors related to HIV/STD testing among male STD clinic clients / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To understand the willingness on acceptance of a short-message-service (SMS) program provided for HIV/STD testing and the related factors,among male clients at the STD clinics in China.Methods Convenience sampling method was used to select study subjectsat a STD clinic in Wuxi,Jiangsu province.A questionnaire survey was conducted among the subjects to collect the information on socio-demographic characteristics and willingness of acceptance to the SMS.Results A total of 368 SMS subjects were surveyed,in which 75.5％ expressed the willingness of acceptance,while 57.2％ and 38.1％ of them wanted to receive the short message every 3 months or 6 months,respectively.53.8％ of the respondents showed their willingness to share the news with their sexual partners about SMS and 44.8％ of them would do the same to their friends.Data from the Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that those who had received senior high school or above education (aOR =3.632,95％CI1.939-6.715),having homosexual behavior (aOR =1.973,95％ CI1.234-8.358) or those having received AIDS related intervention service in the past year (aOR=9.416,95％CI4.822-18.309) were more likely to accept the SMS.Conclusion SMS seemed to be acceptable among the male STD clinic clients in Wuxi,suggesting that it is feasible to conduct the SMS as a strategy to improve the HIV/STDs testing program at the STD clinics in the future.Promotion of SMS should be strengthened and the provision of general AIDS intervention service at the STD clinics should be established in order to make more STD clinic clients understand this SMS.