P48.05
Background: In the last 10 years, our biomedical knowledge of HIV prevention has grown tremendously and several new prevention tools are now at our disposal. Historically, gay men have been early adopters of risk reduction strategies, such as condoms. The Resonance Project is a 3-year community-based research project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, seeking to understand how biomedical HIV knowledge is entering the discourses, prevention strategies and folk wisdom of gay men and their service providers.
Methods: We conducted 3 semi-structured focus groups with 22 service providers who work with gay men in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. This was followed by 20 one-on-one interviews with service providers, 10 of which were with service providers who identify as gay men. Topics we explored included: the challenges of conveying biomedical information to gay men; the organizational supports and constraints faced by service providers; and, the complex dual professional/personal position of service providers who are gay men. The audio recordings were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using Interpretive Description (Thorne, 2008).
Results: Service providers reflected a wide variety of attitudes, level of understanding, degree of comfort and willingness to incorporate biomedical aspects of HIV prevention into:
1) their HIV prevention messages and interventions; and
2) in the case of service providers who are gay men, their own sexual practices.
Some of the latter service providers experienced challenges in reconciling their own sexual practices with the advice they give to gay men in their communities, vis-à-vis their emerging biomedical knowledge of HIV risk and prevention.
Conclusions: Service providers play a critical role in implementing HIV prevention interventions that are reflective of gay men's lives and new biomedical understandings of HIV. Special attention is required to recognize and mobilize the dual position of service providers who are gay men in shaping prevention responses.
