Linking sexual compulsivity and HIV transmission

Key take-home messages

• Prevention programs could use sexual compulsivity scales or community-based participatory research methods to collect and assess sexual health data on sexual behaviour that could be used to:
  • Encourage clients to assess their sexual behaviors and decide to test for HIV and other STIs.
  • Help health providers identify the psychological thought processes, psychiatric and biomedical disorders, personality dispositions, addiction patterns, and socio-cultural realities that contribute to high risk sexual behaviors.
  • Influence how sexual compulsivity can be treated by leading to new intensive, population-specific therapeutic models or interventions (e.g., behavioral and psychopharmacological treatments to reduce stress and its impact on health and quality of life). Studies also showed that sexual compulsivity manifests itself in many different ways which makes it more resistant to ‘simple therapies’ (1;12).
• Treatment for sexual compulsivity should include some form of HIV prevention/risk reduction. To provide the best health care for clients, clinicians should implement proper assessment and identification tools, learn more about community resources, and integrate interventions techniques for sexual compulsivity into their clinical practice.

• Population(s)
  • Men who have sex with men
  • General HIV+ population
  • General HIV- population
• Prevention
  • Sexual risk behaviour