OBJECTIVETo investigate the status of HIV disclosure to primary partners and to explore the correlates of HIV disclosure among HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu.

METHODSThis survey was conducted in Chengdu, Chongqing and Guangzhou by using "snowballing" sample from December, 2012 to May, 2013. Participants who were eighteen years old or elder, HIV-infected, had sex with men and lived in three cities when the survey was conducted were eligible for subjects of this survey. Primary partners and disclosure status of participants were investigated. Multiple Unconditioned Logistic Regression analysis was used to analyze the influence factors associated with HIV disclosure.Of 600 participants, 541 were excluded because of logical problem or incomplete items in questionnaire and the effective response rate was 90.2%.

RESULTSOf the 541 HIV-positive MSM participants, the mean age was (30.2 ± 7.7) years old, 78.2% (423/541) of the participants had male primary partners.Of the 423 participants who had male primary partner, 10.9% (46/423) had wife, 58.9% (249/423) had one primary partner, and 41.1% (174/423) had two or more. The proportion of HIV disclosure to all male primary sexual partners and wife was 41.8% (177/423) and 4.5% (19/423) respectively, 20.3% (86/423) of them disclosure to some of male primary partners and 37.8% (160/423) not disclosure to any male primary partners. Participants who had HIV-positive male partners in the past 6 months (accounting for 35.2% (149/423)) were more likely to disclose HIV infection to their primary sexual partners (70.5% (105/149)) than those who had non-HIV-positive sexual partners (26.3% (72/274)) (χ(2) = 77.46, P < 0.01). Participants who had male unknown HIV-status sexual partners in the past 6 months(accounting for 52.7% (223/423)) were less likely to disclosure HIV infection to primary sexual partners (22.4% (50/223) ) than those who had already known HIV-status sexual partners (63.5% (127/200)) (χ(2) = 73.11, P < 0.01). The possibility of HIV disclosure to primary sexual partner among participants who had HIV-positive sexual partner increase to 6.36 (3.75-10.80) times of those who had HIV -negative partners, and the possibility among participants who had sexual partners of unknown HIV status decreased to 0.44 (0.25-0.76) times of those who had sexual partners of already known HIV status. Compared with having non-anal sex behaviors with male primary partner, the possibility of HIV disclosure to primary sexual partner decreased to 0.46 (0.22-0.95) times among participants who had anal sex behavior with male primary partners.

CONCLUSIONThere were low proportion of HIV disclosure to primary sexual partners among HIV-infected MSM in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu.HIV disclosure to primary sexual partners may be associated with characteristics of their sexual partners, and participants who had HIV-positive male partners were more likely to disclose HIV infection to their primary sexual partners.