ru2hot?: A public health education campaign for men who have sex with men to increase awareness of symptoms of acute HIV infection
Open Access
- 24 January 2013
- journal article
- behaviour
- Published by BMJ in Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Vol. 89 (5), 409-414
- https://doi.org/10.1136/sextrans-2012-050730
Abstract
Objectives Teach HIV-negative men who have sex with men (MSM) symptoms of acute HIV infection (AHI) and direct them to nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) though Public Health—Seattle & King County (PHSKC). Design Cross-sectional surveys, retrospective database analysis and chart review. Methods Beginning in June 2009, the ru2hot? campaign described AHI symptoms and NAAT. Two preintervention and two postintervention surveys assessed campaign visibility, symptom knowledge, and healthcare-seeking behaviour. Regression analyses evaluated secular trends in case-finding. Results 366 MSM completed surveys. In survey 4, 23% of 100 men reported seeing the campaign, and 25% knew ‘ru2hot?’ referred to AHI. From survey 1 to survey 4, the proportion of subjects who knew ≥2 symptoms or that AHI was a ‘flu-like’ illness was unchanged (61% vs 57%, p=0.6). However, in survey 4, 13 (72%) of 18 subjects who saw the campaign named fever as a symptom of AHI compared with 19 (35%) of 55 subjects who had not seen the campaign (p=0.005). From 9/2003 to 12/2010, 622 (2.2%) of 27 661 MSM tested HIV-positive, and 111 (18%) were identified by the Public Health—Seattle & King County NAAT programme. In terms of the impact of the campaign on case-finding, diagnosis of EIA-negative/NAAT-positive and OraQuick-negative/EIA-positive cases increased from six in 2004 to 20 in 2010 (p=0.01), but postcampaign numbers were unchanged. 23 (51%) of 45 cases identified before and 8 (44%) of 18 cases identified after the campaign reported symptoms at initial testing (p=0.6). Conclusions Although a quarter of MSM surveyed saw the campaign and knowledge of fever (the symptom of emphasis) was high, case-finding was unchanged. Increasing campaign visibility could have had greater impact.This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- The cost-effectiveness of symptom-based testing and routine screening for acute HIV infection in men who have sex with men in the USAAIDS, 2011
- Prevention of HIV-1 Infection with Early Antiretroviral TherapyThe New England Journal of Medicine, 2011
- The Development and Implementation of an Outreach Program to Identify Acute and Recent HIV Infections in New York CityThe Open AIDS Journal, 2010
- HIV Testing in a High‐Incidence Population: Is Antibody Testing Alone Good Enough?Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2009
- Assessment of the Ability of a Fourth-Generation Immunoassay for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Antibody and p24 Antigen To Detect both Acute and Recent HIV Infections in a High-Risk SettingJournal of Clinical Microbiology, 2009
- Strategies Used in the Detection of Acute/Early HIV Infections. The NIMH Multisite Acute HIV Infection Study: IAIDS and Behavior, 2009
- A 10-Year Systematic Review of HIV/AIDS Mass Communication Campaigns: Have We Made Progress?Journal of Health Communication, 2009
- No increase in HIV or sexually transmissible infection testing following a social marketing campaign among men who have sex with menJournal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2009
- Applying Commercial Marketing Theory to Social Marketing: A Tale of 4Ps (and a B)Social Marketing Quarterly, 2008
- Screening for Acute HIV Infection: Lessons LearnedClinical Infectious Diseases, 2007