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What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries
BACKGROUND: To provide empirically based guidance for substituting partner number categories in large MSM surveys with mean numbers of sexual and condomless anal intercourse (CAI) partners in a secondary analysis of survey data. METHODS: We collated data on numbers of sexual and CAI partners reporte...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8898536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35249527 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01483-8 |
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author | Mendez-Lopez, Ana Hickson, Ford Jansen, Klaus Lachowsky, Nathan Burns, Fiona Folch, Cinta Velter, Annie Weatherburn, Peter Marcus, Ulrich von Rüden, Ursula Mirandola, Massimo Gios, Lorenzo Frankis, Jamie Brennan, David J. Schmidt, Axel J. |
author_facet | Mendez-Lopez, Ana Hickson, Ford Jansen, Klaus Lachowsky, Nathan Burns, Fiona Folch, Cinta Velter, Annie Weatherburn, Peter Marcus, Ulrich von Rüden, Ursula Mirandola, Massimo Gios, Lorenzo Frankis, Jamie Brennan, David J. Schmidt, Axel J. |
author_sort | Mendez-Lopez, Ana |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: To provide empirically based guidance for substituting partner number categories in large MSM surveys with mean numbers of sexual and condomless anal intercourse (CAI) partners in a secondary analysis of survey data. METHODS: We collated data on numbers of sexual and CAI partners reported in a continuous scale (write-in number) in thirteen MSM surveys on sexual health and behaviour across 17 countries. Pooled descriptive statistics for the number of sexual and CAI partners during the last twelve (N = 55,180) and 6 months (N = 31,759) were calculated for two sets of categories commonly used in reporting numbers of sexual partners in sexual behaviour surveys. RESULTS: The pooled mean number of partners in the previous 12 months for the total sample was 15.8 partners (SD = 36.6), while the median number of partners was 5 (IQR = 2–15). Means for number of partners in the previous 12 months for the first set of categories were: 16.4 for 11–20 partners (SD = 3.3); 27.8 for 21–30 (SD = 2.8); 38.6 for 31–40 (SD = 2.4); 49.6 for 41–50 (SD = 1.5); and 128.2 for ‘more than 50’ (SD = 98.1). Alternative upper cut-offs: 43.4 for ‘more than 10’ (SD = 57.7); 65.3 for ‘more than 20’ (SD = 70.3). Self-reported partner numbers for both time frames consistently exceeded 200 or 300. While there was substantial variation of overall means across surveys, the means for all chosen categories were very similar. Partner numbers above nine mainly clustered at multiples of tens, regardless of the selected time frame. The overall means for CAI partners were lower than those for sexual partners; however, such difference was completely absent from all categories beyond ten sexual and CAI partners. CONCLUSIONS: Clustering of reported partner numbers confirm common MSM sexual behaviour surveys’ questionnaire piloting feedback indicating that responses to numbers of sexual partners beyond 10 are best guesses rather than precise counts, but large partner numbers above typical upper cut-offs are common. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8898536 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88985362022-03-17 What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries Mendez-Lopez, Ana Hickson, Ford Jansen, Klaus Lachowsky, Nathan Burns, Fiona Folch, Cinta Velter, Annie Weatherburn, Peter Marcus, Ulrich von Rüden, Ursula Mirandola, Massimo Gios, Lorenzo Frankis, Jamie Brennan, David J. Schmidt, Axel J. BMC Med Res Methodol Research BACKGROUND: To provide empirically based guidance for substituting partner number categories in large MSM surveys with mean numbers of sexual and condomless anal intercourse (CAI) partners in a secondary analysis of survey data. METHODS: We collated data on numbers of sexual and CAI partners reported in a continuous scale (write-in number) in thirteen MSM surveys on sexual health and behaviour across 17 countries. Pooled descriptive statistics for the number of sexual and CAI partners during the last twelve (N = 55,180) and 6 months (N = 31,759) were calculated for two sets of categories commonly used in reporting numbers of sexual partners in sexual behaviour surveys. RESULTS: The pooled mean number of partners in the previous 12 months for the total sample was 15.8 partners (SD = 36.6), while the median number of partners was 5 (IQR = 2–15). Means for number of partners in the previous 12 months for the first set of categories were: 16.4 for 11–20 partners (SD = 3.3); 27.8 for 21–30 (SD = 2.8); 38.6 for 31–40 (SD = 2.4); 49.6 for 41–50 (SD = 1.5); and 128.2 for ‘more than 50’ (SD = 98.1). Alternative upper cut-offs: 43.4 for ‘more than 10’ (SD = 57.7); 65.3 for ‘more than 20’ (SD = 70.3). Self-reported partner numbers for both time frames consistently exceeded 200 or 300. While there was substantial variation of overall means across surveys, the means for all chosen categories were very similar. Partner numbers above nine mainly clustered at multiples of tens, regardless of the selected time frame. The overall means for CAI partners were lower than those for sexual partners; however, such difference was completely absent from all categories beyond ten sexual and CAI partners. CONCLUSIONS: Clustering of reported partner numbers confirm common MSM sexual behaviour surveys’ questionnaire piloting feedback indicating that responses to numbers of sexual partners beyond 10 are best guesses rather than precise counts, but large partner numbers above typical upper cut-offs are common. BioMed Central 2022-03-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8898536/ /pubmed/35249527 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01483-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Mendez-Lopez, Ana Hickson, Ford Jansen, Klaus Lachowsky, Nathan Burns, Fiona Folch, Cinta Velter, Annie Weatherburn, Peter Marcus, Ulrich von Rüden, Ursula Mirandola, Massimo Gios, Lorenzo Frankis, Jamie Brennan, David J. Schmidt, Axel J. What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title | What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title_full | What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title_fullStr | What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title_full_unstemmed | What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title_short | What is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among MSM into a continuous scale level variable? A secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
title_sort | what is the empirical basis for converting banded ordinal data on numbers of sex partners among msm into a continuous scale level variable? a secondary analysis of 13 surveys across 17 countries |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8898536/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35249527 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12874-021-01483-8 |
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