Perceived risk and decisional balance to HIV testing in men who have sex with men from Monterrey, Mexico.

Unlabelled: The perceived risk to HIV and the decisional balance (pros and cons) towards HIV testing are fundamental aspects for understanding the motivation of men who have sex with men to engage in behaviours that reduce or increase the risk of infection with the virus.

Objectives: To describe the perceived risk of HIV and the decisional balance towards HIV testing and determine the association between perceived risk and the decisional balance towards HIV testing of men who have sex with men.

Method: Descriptive correlational design, we used respondent-driven sampling, with which we recruited 202 men who have sex with men.

Results: Mean age of 27.79 (SD=8.13), 66.3% reported low perceived risk to HIV. The most significant pros were: "If I had HIV I would not want to infect anyone else" (95%) and "I would like to be sure I did not have HIV to tell my sexual partner" (90.6%). The most significant cons were: "I am afraid of the needle used for the HIV test" (53%), "people could reject me if they had HIV" (78.7%). Finally, there was a correlation between the perceived risk and the decisional balance towards HIV testing (r=.759, p<.001).

Conclusions: Given such data, in future interventions it is important to consider information about the importance of HIV testing on a regular basis, as well as actions to increase the perception of vulnerability to HIV in this population.