Abstract
BackgroundAfter HIV diagnosis, people maintain, reestablish their sexual lives, or build new relationships, often with HIV seronegative partners. Therefore, understanding the factors concerning couple-vulnerability is essential in order to design effective HIV preventive strategies. We examined HIV serodiscordant couples prevalence and their associated factors from a Brazilian city.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional analytical study carried out with people living with HIV (PLHIV) who had an active sex life and were engagement in HIV health care follow-up. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire during individual interviews. We analyzed data using bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses.ResultsThere was 72.0% of HIV serodiscordant partnerships. Those who inconsistently used condoms (aOR: 0.3[0.13–0.7]) and/or had HIV detectable viral load (aOR: 0.29 [0.12–0.7]) were less likely to have an HIV serodiscordant sexual partner. On other hand, the lack of HIV transmission counseling by the health service (aOR: 5.08 [2.02–12.76]), or those who had a casual partner (aOR: 8.12 [1.7–38.8]) or a steady and casual one concomitantly (aOR: 24.82 [1.46–420.83]), were more likely to indicate an HIV serodiscordant partnership.ConclusionThe findings showed a high prevalence of serodiscordant partnerships in PLHIV. Greater visibility among couples in the health services is needed as well as a reassessment in order to provide PLHIV and their sexual partners with care strategies, by the health professionals.
Highlights
After human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) diagnosis, people maintain, reestablish their sexual lives, or build new relationships, often with HIV seronegative partners
The antiretroviral therapy (ART) providing to people living with HIV (PLHI V) and has been the main strategy to control new infections because studies have proved that virus is not transmissible during intercourse when a PLHIV is under ART for at least six months, and under a suppressed viral load at a plasmatic undetectable level [2, 3] making it possible that people maintain or restore their sexual and affective lives after the HIV diagnosis, often conjoining with HIV seronegative partners [4], referred to as HIV serodiscordant or serodifferent couples
Our findings showed a high prevalence of PLHIV who have HIV serodiscordant partnerships
Summary
After HIV diagnosis, people maintain, reestablish their sexual lives, or build new relationships, often with HIV seronegative partners. The ART providing to people living with HIV (PLHI V) and has been the main strategy to control new infections because studies have proved that virus is not transmissible during intercourse when a PLHIV is under ART for at least six months, and under a suppressed viral load at a plasmatic undetectable level [2, 3] making it possible that people maintain or restore their sexual and affective lives after the HIV diagnosis, often conjoining with HIV seronegative partners [4], referred to as HIV serodiscordant or serodifferent couples. Viral load suppression depends on a variety of factors like knowledge of self HIV serostatus, access to health care assistance, ART adherence, HIV genotype, among others, which could contribute to a failed HIV suppression. An HIV seronegative partner can become increasingly exposed to the virus, depending on sexual behavior (e.g., receptive intercourse, or ejaculation), the presence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) [5], or even the challenges related to adherence to medication, stigma and barriers to health assistance [6, 7]
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