A survey of largely white and well-educated Canadian and American HIV-negative gay men found they would generally prefer to follow a non-daily dosing protocol for Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Additionally, the frequency of condomless sex and whether or not such acts were planned helped predict the men’s dosing preferences.

Publishing their findings in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, researchers conducted a survey of 3,217 gay men in 2011, a year before Truvada was approved as HIV prevention in the United States.

Looking back over the three months preceding the survey, 46 percent of the men reported having condomless intercourse at least once. Eight percent said they had had condomless sex at least weekly, which the study classified as “frequent.”

The survey asked the men about whether condomless sex was “planned,” meaning they expected it to happen. It also asked them about their preference for taking PrEP: daily dosing (as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)  now recommends); event-driven dosing, meaning taking one dose up to 48 hours before anticipated intercourse and another dose within two hours of sex; and time-driven dosing, meaning two regular doses each week plus another dose after sex.

Seventy-six percent of the men said they would take event-driven PrEP. Time-driven PrEP garnered 62 percent support. And half of the men said they would take PrEP if it meant a daily pill.

The men who had condomless sex frequently were 50 percent more inclined to say they would take daily PrEP than the men who had condomless sex less than once a week. Those who said they had had unplanned condomless sex were 24 percent more likely to say they would take time-driven PrEP. And those who said they only had planned condomless intercourse were 21 percent more likely to say they would take event-driven PrEP.

To read the aidsmap article, click here.

To read the study abstract, click here.

To read about non-daily dosing protocols for PrEP, click here and here.