Access to Basic HIV-Related Services and PrEP Acceptability among Men Who Have sex with Men Worldwide: Barriers, Facilitators, and Implications for Combination Prevention

Table 1

Reliability scores for survey scales by region.

	Asia	Caribbean	E. Europe and Central Asia	Latin America	Middle East and N. Africa	Oceania	S-Saharan Africa	W N Europe N America	Overall
Homophobia: perceptions of homophobia in participant’s country (e.g., in your country, how many people believe that a person who is gay/MSM cannot be trusted?)	0.77	0.76	0.69	0.73	0.79	0.81	0.83	0.77	0.85
Provider stigma: experiences of stigma from health providers (e.g., in your country, has a health provider ever treated you poorly because of your sexuality?)	0.74	0.61	0.71	0.80	0.69	0.66	0.69	0.68	0.72
Violence-MSM: experiences of violence for being perceived to be MSM (e.g., in the past 12 months, how often were you physically assaulted (slapped, punched, pushed, hit, or beaten) for being gay/MSM?)	0.74	0.81	0.83	0.75	0.84	0.64	0.88	0.64	0.81
Violence-HIV *: experiences of violence for being HIV positive (e.g., in the past 12 months, how often were you physically assaulted (slapped, punched, pushed, hit, or beaten) for being HIV positive?)	0.77	0.79	0.73	0.64	0.85	0.44	0.89	0.53	0.75
Negative consequences for outness: negative experiences because the participant’s sexuality is known to others (e.g., how often have you experienced negative consequences as a result of coworkers knowing that you are attracted to men?)	0.74	0.80	0.68	0.69	0.83	0.65	0.72	0.64	0.71
PrEP stigma *: perceptions of stigma associated with taking PrEP (e.g., if you thought other people would find out that you were taking PrEP drugs to avoid being infected with HIV, how likely is it that you would use PrEP?)	0.79	0.68	0.76	0.74	0.77	0.64	0.73	0.67	0.74
Community engagement: level of engagement in social activities with other MSM (e.g., during the past 12 months, how often have you participated in gay social groups or in activities such as a book or cooking club?)	0.75	0.78	0.71	0.78	0.59	0.71	0.82	0.76	0.76
Connection to gay community: the degree to which the participant feels connected to a community of MSM (e.g., how connected do you feel to the gay community where you live?)	0.78	0.75	0.69	0.80	0.69	0.80	0.84	0.79	0.783
Comfort with provider: degree of comfort with health provider (e.g., in your country, how comfortable would you feel discussing HIV with your health care provider?)	0.77	0.76	0.73	0.70	0.83	0.72	0.71	0.76	0.81
Outness: to what degree the participant’s sexuality is known to others (e.g., how many of your coworkers know that you are attracted to men?)	0.81	0.86	0.76	0.80	0.83	0.79	0.82	0.76	0.84
PrEP knowledge *: (e.g., do you know what PrEP is? Have you ever heard of taking HIV medications to avoid being infected with HIV?)	0.61	0.60	0.69	0.69	0.85	0.72	0.73	0.69	0.72
PrEP acceptability *: (e.g., how comfortable are you with the idea of using HIV medications to avoid becoming infected with HIV?)	0.78	0.78	0.79	0.77	0.85	0.85	0.84	0.84	0.82

∗The scales for PrEP knowledge, stigma, and acceptability were only measured among respondents who reported being HIV negative or being unsure of their HIV status. Violence-HIV was only measured among respondents who reported living with HIV.