Table 4.
Requested HIV/STD Content Areas for a Tailored Mobile Phone Intervention for Young Black Men Who Have Sex with Men in North Carolina
| Requested content area | Sample quotations from focus group participants |
|---|---|
| Information about STDs and HIV testing | (1) One of the things that I think really needs to be talked about are STDs and really tying STD infection into risk for HIV… Like I watch porn. And some of the porn that I've seen lately -folks got HPV you know, a bunch of different STDs and it's like “nothing is wrong with that”….so really kind of educating people more about STDs and their risk and particularly tying it to HIV as well and what it looks like –you see those pictures on the websites and it's like a really nasty case of herpes, or a really nasty case of genital warts or what-have-you but to really sort of talk to people about what it looks like when it first starts…And so we can really begin to educate people about more things than just HIV - So I would think the STDs and other health topics in general. (Andre, age 28) |
| (2) Let you know where to go for testing…I feel like would be more helpful to people. (Apollo, age 24) | |
| (3) And just the testing sites, the information about locations and times that they operate and things like that just need to be a little more clear. (James, age 28) | |
| Drug and alcohol use | (4) Um, another thing that you could add to the website is—um—let everybody to be knowledgeable about drug use. Because drug use tends to play a major part in STDs and different things like that (Star, age 25) |
| (5) Most of the time when you're on drugs, or when you're intoxicated–you have no sense of decision—like decision making is just all out-of-whack so it's just like “ok, yeah, this feels good, I'm just gonna keep doing it - but I'm not gonna put a condom on…I'm torn up and it feels good, so I'm gonna keep doing it.” (Shawn, age 23) | |
| (6) Not just [information] for sexually transmitted diseases, but for people that suffer from drug abuse and people that may have been, you know had issues as a child and different things like that. Cause you really don't have an avenue to look for that type of stuff. (James, age 28) | |
| Safer sex | (7) Once you leave school, it's like okay, the whole thing about safe sex, you're supposed to take it with you, you're supposed to know it. But how many of us do actually practice it? (Max and Poet nod their heads in agreement)…And if you don't know what's going on and you may have questions…So that would be something that's good to put on the website. (Cortez, age 28) |
| (8) …everything like how to use a condom, even when fingering somebody, the whole finger condom, just everything completely. (Apollo, age 24) | |
| Sexuality and relationships | (9) Unfortunately with HIV it's like you know—“condom, condom, condom, use a condom, stop sleeping around, condom, condom, condom”. But it's not talking about why am I not using a condom? Or why do I feel the need to have these multiple partners because they made me feel good or whatever…or I gotta pay my rent or whatever. Those are the things that I think sometimes are missing from HIV prevention work and health related things in general. (Andre, age 28) |
| (10) I think really the thing that keeps us separate is the sexual stuff, like most of the time when you want to talk to someone that's gay they only want to do sexual stuff and if it's not about that then they don't want to talk to you (group mumbling and nodding in agreement). (Lamar, age 20) | |
| (11) Coming out stories will probably be a good one. (B, age 24) | |
| Resources for gay-friendly providers | (12) I think if there was, like, something on [the website], you know, something that says this doctor here is gay-friendly, transgender-friendly, what-have-you. (James, age 28) |
| (13) Is there ever going to be a time where, such as, like, maybe a small group wants to have a discussion with the physician? (Brad, age 22, asking about chatting with a gay-friendly physician on-line) | |
| Support groups and groups for positive men | (14) I think having a section on that site just to find out who has [HIV] and who doesn't just so people can actually go there and have somebody to talk to who has issues with the same thing…to have a section for people that whether negative or positive or whatever it is you got—gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, I mean, that's just a discussion that y'all can have…like “hey watch out for this, watch out for that”. Cause I noticed that BGC, A4A, Jack'd, they don't have any of that stuff up there. (Brad, age 22) |
| (15) I think the virtual option [support groups] would be awesome because sometimes you have people who, they're not outgoing so they're not “Well, I would love to bounce off of people but I don't really want nobody all up in my business” (Poet, age 24) | |
| (16) It would also help the support groups that are already available to also kind of possibly tap in to becoming associated and affiliated with this one website (Poet: Mm-hm) so it could continue to bring the community together. (JJ, age 26; Poet, age 24) |