HIV-negative and HIV-positive gay men's attitudes to medicines, HIV treatments and antiretroviral-based prevention

Abstract

We assessed attitudes to medicines, HIV treatments and antiretroviral-based prevention in a national, online survey of 1,041 Australian gay men (88.3 % HIV-negative and 11.7 % HIV-positive). Multivariate analysis of variance was used to identify the effect of HIV status on attitudes. HIV-negative men disagreed with the idea that HIV drugs should be restricted to HIV-positive people. HIV-positive men agreed and HIV-negative men disagreed that taking HIV treatments was straightforward and HIV-negative men were more sceptical about whether HIV treatment or an undetectable viral load prevented HIV transmission. HIV-negative and HIV-positive men had similar attitudes to pre-exposure prophylaxis but divergent views about 'treatment as prevention'. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.