Impact of Social Media Use on HIV Testing and Related Mediator among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Shandong Province, China

Daisy Aurore Steinely Mboussi, Yuxi Lin, Lovel Fornah and Wei Ma ()
Additional contact information
Daisy Aurore Steinely Mboussi: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China
Yuxi Lin: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China
Lovel Fornah: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China
Wei Ma: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 7, 1-9

Abstract: In China, HIV testing is the important first step of HIV prevention and treatment cascades but is not widely adopted by men who have sex with men (MSM). However, social media has been increasingly used to promote and improve HIV testing. This study aimed to assess the impact of social media use on HIV testing and explore the mediator in the relationship between social media and HIV testing. The authors conducted a cross-sectional study among 935 MSM participants in 11 cities in Shandong Province from 14 September to 6 December 2020. Multivariable regression was conducted to assess the relationship between social media use and HIV testing uptake, and mediation analysis was used to assess the mediation effect of HIV testing self-efficacy in the relationship between social media use and HIV testing. The present study findings showed that social media use was related to HIV testing (aOR = 3.024, 95% CI: 1.869, 4.892) and HIV self-testing uptake (aOR = 1.894, 95% CI: 1.228, 2.922), but was not related to HIV facility-based testing (aOR = 1.709, 95% CI: 0.806, 3.625, p = 0.162). A mediation effect of HIV testing self-efficacy was found between social media use and HIV testing (indirect effect: 0.13, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.29), facility-based testing (indirect effect: 0.05, 95% CI: 0.003, 0.16), and self-testing uptake (indirect effect: 0.07, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.16). Social media could be an effective tool to improve HIV testing, and healthcare providers should pay more attention to HIV testing self-efficacy in HIV testing promotion.

Keywords: HIV testing; men who have sex with men; social media; HIV facility-based testing; HIV self-testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/7/5383/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/7/5383/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:7:p:5383-:d:1115340

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().