Pilot Evaluation of the Ability of Men Who Have Sex with Men to Self-Administer Rapid HIV Tests, Prepare Dried Blood Spot Cards, and Interpret Test Results, Atlanta, Georgia, 2013
MacGowan et al.
The finding, in our words
Most men who have sex with men could self-administer HIV rapid tests and correctly interpret results, but 27% of dried blood spot cards were of poor quality and interpretation was difficult when control lines were absent, suggesting instructions need refinement before decentralised deployment.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
The study found that DBS testing showed high specificity for HIV, HBV and HCV and perfect sensitivity for HIV and HBV, but lower sensitivity for syphilis and HCV, with creatinine measurements slightly higher than venous samples. Despite challenges in sample adequacy, DBS was acceptable to participants and could support decentralised STI and renal monitoring in men who have sex with men.
Dried blood spot testing achieved high acceptability among Métis community members in a culturally tailored pilot. Participants valued the ease of self-collection, the reduction of logistical barriers and stigma through event-based delivery, and the provision of Métis-specific services, suggesting that community-centred microsampling can expand HIV and sexually transmitted infection screening in decentralised diagnostics.
Among 92 patients on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, 79.3 per cent returned home-collected kits comprising dried blood spots, urine, and oropharyngeal swabs. Nearly 87.7 per cent were extremely to moderately satisfied with avoiding clinic visits, and mean turnaround fell from 17 to 5 days, showing self-collection is a feasible, patient-centric model for decentralised sexual health and SARS-CoV-2 screening.
Most internet-using men who have sex with men reported high acceptability for HIV testing options including rapid oral fluid self-testing, but home dried blood spot self-collection ranked lowest in intended usage preference. This suggests that while decentralised HIV screening is acceptable to this population, DBS self-collection methods face particular acceptability challenges that must be addressed to optimise uptake.
The study found that self-collection of dried blood spots and other samples using at-home kits was a useful and cost-effective method for screening a large cohort for sexually transmitted infections outside a clinic. This demonstrates the feasibility of decentralised, patient-centric sampling for population-level infectious disease surveillance.