Violence and depression among men who have sex with men in Tanzania

BACKGROUND: Men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to be at an increased risk of Violence, HIV transmission and Mental Disorders such as depression on top of many other bio-psycho-socio challenges they face as a result of their sexual orientation. METHODS: We recruited 345 MSM using a respondent driven sampling technique. Revised Conflict Tactic Scale, PHQ-9 and questions adapted from the TDHS 2010 were used to assess for violence, depression and HIV-risk behaviors respectively. Continuous and categorical variables were analyzed with student’s t-test and chi-square test respectively. Logistic regression analyses were performed to assess for predictors of depression and HIV-risk behaviors. All tests were two sided and p < 0.05 was taken as significance level. RESULTS: Overall, 325 (94.2%) of participants experienced any form of violence, with emotional violence constituting the majority (90.1%), while physical and sexual violence were reported by 254 (73.6%) and 250 (72.5%) of participants respectively. Depressive symptoms were present in 245 (70.0%) and participants who experienced violence had a 3 times increased risk of depressive symptoms compared to their violence-free counterparts, p < 0.001. On the other hand, participants who experienced any form of violence displayed an over 11 times increased rate of depressive symptoms compared to their counterparts who were violence free, p < 0.001. Violence experience was found to be the strongest associated factor for depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The rates of violence, depressive symptoms and HIV risk behaviors amongst MSM are astoundingly high thus necessitating extensive interventions. In view of this, deliberate measures to deal with the reported high rates necessitate joint intervention efforts from the policy makers, health providers and community at large. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1456-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.