sexual behaviour and hiv risk in men who - Karnataka Health ...

RESULTSStudy populationIn total 150 men participated in the Mysore MSM SBS study, half in the face to faceinterview (FTFI) and half in the informal confidential voting interview (ICVI). Here,demographic characteristics and sexual behaviour information are provided for both groupsof respondents, but the more detailed information is provided only for FTFI respondents. Atthe end of the report, we compare responses of respondents in the two surveys using differenttechniques to questions that relate to sensitive sexual and risk behaviours to estimate thepotential social desirability bias in responses in face to face interviews.Socio-demographic characteristics, FTFI and ICVIMost of the respondents were over the age of 25, with a mean of 29.1 years (Table 1). Mostwere Hindus (69%), though a sizeable minority (22%) were Muslims, a figure higher than theproportion of Muslims in the general population (8.8% according to the 2001 census 2001).Interestingly there appeared to be two main groups of respondents in terms of education, with44% being illiterate yet 46% having more than 10 years of education (Table 1). The mainsource of income was sex work for 16% of respondents, and the rest were engaged in avariety of occupations from either agricultural or non-agricultural labour (35%), selfemployment (13%), business/trade (13%); 5% were students (Table 1).Most participants had never been married to a woman (68%), but one quarter (24%) werecurrently married. A small number (5%) reported that they were married hijras. Of thosewho had been married to a female, the mean age at marriage was 24.2 years. Most of therespondents reported that they lived with their family without a wife (55%), some lived alone(9%) and 23% lived with a female partner (mostly wives) (Table 2). Of those who reportedthat they lived with a sexual partner (male, female or hijra, the majority had done so for morethan 10 years (52%). Only about 15 percent of the FTFI respondents reported beingcircumcised.Sex in and out of MysoreSixty percent of the respondents lived in Mysore, but the rest lived outside, and of those,more than a quarter (27%) said they come to town every day to have sex, and a further 37%come at least once a week. Most respondents (85%) had lived in their current place ofresidence for their whole lives, or for over 20 years. The respondents had been havingMSM-T sex in Mysore for on average 12.3 years with 39% doing this for more than 15 years,suggesting a well established population of local men who have known each other for a longtime (Table 3). Some of them (21%) said that they also have anal sex with MSM-T in othercities or towns, and had mostly been doing this for between 1-9 years (70%). One third ofthese respondents said they had last visited the other place less than a month ago and twothirds had had sex with between 1-4 MSM-T during the last trip (Table 4). The main reasonsthey gave for going outside for such sex was because they could earn more money there(40%), have more clients/partners (40%) and to maintain secrecy (33%). Sex in those placeswas most likely to be in public places, though a few said they rented rooms (Table 5).- 11 -