The incorporation of HIV self-testing as an exclusive option among men who have sex with men in Spain: results of an online cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: We assessed to what extent HIV self-testing would be incorporated by men who have sex with men (MSM) with previous testing history as their exclusive testing option and describe what actions they would take in the case of obtaining a reactive self-test. METHODS: We conducted an online survey among Spanish resident MSM recruited mainly in gay dating apps and analyze 6171 ever tested individuals. We used Poisson regression to estimate factors associated with the incorporation of self-testing as the exclusive testing option. Among those who would incorporate self-testing as their exclusive option, we described actions taken if obtaining a reactive self-test by number of tests in the past. RESULTS: Nearly half of the participants (48.3%) were > =35 years old, 84.6% were born in Spain, 57.9% had attained a university degree, 55.1% lived in a municipality of ≤500.000 and 86.4% self-identified as homosexual. For 37.2%, self-testing would become their exclusive testing option. The incorporation of self-testing as the exclusive option increased with age 25–34 (PR:1.1, 95%CI:1.0–1.3), 35–44 (PR:1.3, 95%CI:1.2–1.5), 45–49 (PR:1.5, 95%CI:1.3–1.7) and > 50 (PR:1.5, 95%CI:1.3–1.8) and in those who reported unprotected anal intercourse (PR:1.1, 95%CI:1.0–1.2) or having paid for sex (PR:1.2, 95%CI:1.0–1.3) in the last 12 months. It was also associated with having had < 10 HIV test in the past (2–9 tests (PR:1.3, 95%CI:1.1–1.4); 1 test (PR:1.5, 95%CI:1.3–1.7)), and having been tested ≥2 years (PR:1.4, 95%CI:1.3–1.5) or between 1 and 2 years ago (PR:1.1, 95%CI:1.0–1.2). Of participants who would use self-testing exclusively 76.6% would confirm their result in case of obtaining a reactive self-test and only 6.1% wouldn’t know how to react. Only one individual expressed that he would do nothing at all. CONCLUSION: HIV self-testing could become the exclusive testing option for more than a third of our participants. It was chosen as the exclusive option especially by older, at risk and under-tested MSM. Self-testing strategies need to especially consider the linkage to care process. In this sense, only a small fraction would not know how to react and virtually nobody reported taking no action if obtaining a reactive result. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-020-09976-9.