Safe Sex After Post-exposure Prophylaxis for Hiv: Intentions, Challenges and Ambivalences in Narratives of Gay Men.
From: National Centre in HIV Social Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. h.korner@unsw.edu.au
AIDS care
- Publish Date: Nov 2006
- ISSN: 0954-0121
- Volume: 18
- Issue: 8
- Pages: 879-87
- Medium: Print
- Language: English
- Citation (JAMA): Körner H, Hendry O, Kippax S, et al. Safe Sex After Post-exposure Prophylaxis for Hiv: Intentions, Challenges and Ambivalences in Narratives of Gay Men.. Nov 2006;18:879-87
Abstract
This paper draws on findings from an on-going prospective cohort study, with a quantitative and a qualitative arm, to monitor the implementation of non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) in Australia. The aim of the qualitative arm was to explore in-depth details of exposures to HIV and participants’ understanding of ‘risk’. Of the 328 patients who were enrolled in the study from March 1999 to July 2001, 88 (27%) participated in the qualitative arm. Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured style and explored the event that precipitated the request for PEP, participants’ understanding of safe sex, their physical and psychological experience of the treatment and the impact that the availability of PEP may have on their sexual practices in the future. One theme running through the interviews was a determination to either maintain existing high levels of safe sex or to increase safe sex practices in those men who perceived PEP as ‘a wake up call’. This determination was motivated by the experience of taking combination therapies and reflection on a potentially HIV-positive future. However, there were also tensions and ambivalences in the narratives. PEP was promoted as an adjunct to safe sex, not as an alternative. This is how PEP was understood by the men in this study.
Mesh Headings (Keywords): Adolescent, Adult, Anti-Retroviral Agents, HIV Infections, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Homosexuality, Male, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Narration, New South Wales, Prospective Studies, Risk Factors, Safe Sex
Check for Full Text / PubMed Unique Identifier (PMID): 17012076
This abstract is part of PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed includes more than 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles. See Copyright and Disclaimers.
Linked medical terms appearing on this page are added by Healia to help readers find more information and are not part of the original PubMed document.
The data herein was last updated on July 8th, 2008 and may not reflect the most current and accurate data available from NLM.