Relationship Between Sexual Behaviors with Non-committed Relationship Partners and COVID-19 Restrictions and Notification Rates: Results from a Longitudinal Study of Gay and Bisexual Men in Australia

Storer, D; Prestage, Garrett; McManus, H; Maher, L; Bavinton, BR; Ellard, Jeanne; Jin, F; Philpot, S; Holt, M; Saxton, P; Haire, B; Murphy, Dean; Hammoud, MA

doi:10.26181/23119073.v2

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Relationship Between Sexual Behaviors with Non-committed Relationship Partners and COVID-19 Restrictions and Notification Rates: Results from a Longitudinal Study of Gay and Bisexual Men in Australia

Version 2 2023-06-02, 00:00

Version 1 2023-06-01, 23:42

journal contribution

posted on 2023-06-02, 00:00 authored by D Storer, Garrett PrestageGarrett Prestage, H McManus, L Maher, BR Bavinton, Jeanne EllardJeanne Ellard, F Jin, S Philpot, M Holt, P Saxton, B Haire, Dean MurphyDean Murphy, MA Hammoud

Introduction: COVID-19 related lockdowns have impacted the sexual activity of gay and bisexual men (GBM). We investigated trends in sexual behaviors and the COVID-19 context in which they occurred (COVID-notification rates and jurisdictional restrictions) to understand changes in the duration and severity of periods of lockdown on the sexual behavior of Australian GBM. Methods: In an online, prospective observational study of 831 GBM from May 2020 to May 2021, we investigated associations between changes in sexual behavior among Australian GBM, lockdowns, and COVID-19 notification rates through weekly surveys from May 2020 to May 2021. Results: The mean age was 45.71 years (SD: 13.93). Most identified as gay (89.0%) and 10.2% were living with HIV. There was an overall increase in the mean weekly number of non-committed relationship partners (0.53–0.90, p < 0.001). The state of Victoria experienced a significant extended COVID-19 outbreak, accompanied by severe lockdown restrictions. In response, Victorian men’s partner numbers shifted three times, while elsewhere there was an overall gradually increasing trend. Conclusions: Less severe outbreaks with shorter lockdown periods, involving fewer and geographically contained, COVID-19 notifications were accompanied by non-significant changes in sex with non-relationship partners than more severe outbreaks over extended periods and larger geographical areas.

Funding

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. The Kirby Institute is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health. This study was funded by the New South Wales Ministry of Health, via the Prevention Research Support Program and New South Wales BBV and STI Research, Intervention and Strategic Evaluation (BRISE) program. Funders had no input in the data collection, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of any findings. LM and BRB are supported by the award of an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Research Fellowship.

History

Publication Date

2023-06-01

Journal

Sexuality Research and Social Policy

Issue

20

Pagination

12p. (pp.825-836)

Publisher

Springer

ISSN

1868-9884

Rights Statement

© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.