Five-year monitoring of a gay-friendly voluntary counselling and testing facility in Switzerland: who got tested and why?

Table 3 Characteristics of MSM ¹ Checkpoint clients, 2005-2009

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Number of clients	211	238	296	387	389
Median age (years)	33	34	31	33	32.5
In a steady relationship with a male partner (%)	49.7***	55.9	48.5	47.2	51.9
HIV status of partner (%)**
Negative	n.a.*	63.3	66.9	63.7	62.7
Positive		12.5	5.6	11.0	10.9
Unknown		24.2	27.5	25.3	26.4
Ever tested (%)	88.9	86.6	91.6	91.0	91.8
Lifetime median number of tests among ever tested	3	4	3	3	4
Returning clients (%)	n.a.*	23.4***	28.4	35.9	39.6
Median number of AI partners last 12 months	3	3	3	3	3
UAI with at least one steady partner (%)	63.3	46.1	47.7	55.2	49.3
UAI with at least one casual partner (%)	25.3	28.2	26.9	32.4	37.0
UAI with at least one partner of different/unknown HIV status in the last 12 months (%)
Yes	29.7	28.2	32.1	30.5	29.3
No	56.5	69.3	65.5	51.7	61.2
Missing	13.8	2.5	2.4	17.8	9.5
Main reason for testing			(n = 289)	(n = 372)	(n = 386)
Sexual risk exposure (%)	-	-	39.8	45.2	39.9
Routine (%)	-	-	30.4	32.0	34.7
Condom stopping in the beginning of a new steady relationship (%)	-	-	12.5	9.4	10.1
STI test (%)	-	-	12.1	5.4	0.0*****
Other (%)	-	-	5.2	8.1	15.3*****

¹ Males who declared sexual contacts with men, independently of sexual identity or orientation.
* Not available due to incomplete data in the first year of operation. Quality of data in 2005 is somewhat poorer than for the other years because of difficulties around the implementation of the monitoring.
** Among MSM in a steady relationship with a male partner at the time of the consultation.
*** Missing values above 5%.
**** Percentages are calculated among clients who reported anal intercourse with this type of partner in the previous 12 months.
***** A special mobile action on the scene ("Mobile Checkpoint") offering STI rapid testing took place that year and was classified among "other". 6.3% of clients mentioned "Mobile Checkpoint".

ISSN: 1471-2458