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Brief Report: Determinants of Potential Sexual Activity Reduction in the Face of the Mpox Epidemic

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Abstract

Background

The current mpox epidemic is most prevalent among men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM). Vaccination programs are being rolled-out to curb the epidemic. Behavioural measures have been called for as well, for example, by the WHO and national public health authorities to reduce the number of sexual partners and sexual activity. We investigated intentions and determinants among Dutch MSM to follow such behavioural measures.

Methods

Early in July 2022, in the context of a dynamic ongoing epidemic, 394 MSM answered an online questionnaire investigating concepts such as perceived mpox risk, vaccination and behavioural change intentions and collecting socio-demographic and sexual behaviour information.

Results

The overall intentions to reduce number of partners and sexual activity were high, but only a minority had developed definite intentions. Determinant analysis revealed that dating/open relationship status was a positive predictor; vaccination intentions did not predict sexual behaviour change; those not on PrEP were more likely to change their sexual behaviour. Mpox infection concern was the main predictor for behaviour change intentions.

Conclusions

Our results show that behavioural measures to avoid an mpox infection are present in majority of participants in our survey, but high intentions are held by a minority. Taking the historic complexity of behavioural change pleas among MSM into account sensitive, additional public health measures are necessary to reach and to inform MSM about potential benefits of sexual behaviour change.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Work and Social Psychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Haoyi Wang, Kennedy J. I. d’Abreu de Paulo, Thomas Gültzow, Hanne M. L. Zimmermann & Kai. J. Jonas

  2. Department of Theory, Methods & Statistics, Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands

    Thomas Gültzow

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  1. Haoyi Wang
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  2. Kennedy J. I. d’Abreu de Paulo
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Contributions

HW and KJJ conceptualized this research. KJJ and HW collected the data for this research. HW analysed the data. HW and KJJ drafted the manuscript. All authors critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kai. J. Jonas.

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Ethics Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was assessed and approved by the ERCPN of Maastricht University (ref.188_11_02_2018_S32).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Not applicable.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Wang, H., de Paulo, K.J.I.d., Gültzow, T. et al. Brief Report: Determinants of Potential Sexual Activity Reduction in the Face of the Mpox Epidemic. Int.J. Behav. Med. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-023-10252-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-023-10252-4

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