Text Messaging to Promote HIV Testing in Gay Men

Cell Phones for Bringing Gay Men From Internet to the Health Center

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT07165496

Enrollment

400

Registered

2025-09-10

Start date

2015-04-01

Completion date

2015-12-31

Last updated

2025-11-24

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

HIV Testing

Keywords

HIV testing, HIV prevention, text messaging, men who have sex with men, health information technologies

Brief summary

The rate of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remains high among Peruvian men who have sex with men (MSM), and new prevention programs should be developed to reach and provide sexual health services to more MSM. The Internet is a feasible medium both for recruiting participants and for implementing projects with MSM in Lima, Peru. Likewise, in Peru, mobile phones are promising tools for carrying out HIV-related interventions due to the high rate of mobile phone penetration. The Internet is a way to reach MSM who do not attend traditional health centers due to the stigma associated with being homosexual. Since mobile phones can be used to promote health, the investigators proposed to design, implement, and evaluate an intervention using text messages to promote HIV testing among Peruvian MSM recruited online. To achieve this objective, the investigators conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the efficacy of a text message-based intervention to promote HIV testing among MSM in Lima recruited via the Internet.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALText message-based intervention

Participants received weekly text messages to promote health and HIV testing and were followed and supported by trained healthcare counselors through two-way communication over a 12-week period. They were able to schedule a free HIV testing appointment at any time up to six months after enrollment.

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

DIAGNOSTIC

Masking

NONE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

MALE

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Be male at birth * Be 18 years of age or older * Be a resident of Lima, Peru * Report having had sex (oral or anal) with another man in the past 12 months * Provide informed consent * Own a mobile phone

Exclusion criteria

* Report being HIV-positive * Have taken an HIV test within the past year

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Number of participants who received an HIV test	From enrollment to the end of the 6-month follow-up period	Having undergone HIV testing at one of the study-affiliated health centers

Countries

Peru

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026