Towards preparedness for PrEP: PrEP awareness and acceptability among MSM at high risk of HIV transmission who use sociosexual media in four Celtic nations: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland: an online survey

Objective To assess the awareness and acceptability of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among men who have sex with men (MSM) and use sociosexual media at high risk of HIV infection in four Celtic nations.
Design Cross-sectional study. Methods Online self-complete survey of 386 HIVnegative/ status unknown MSM who reported c:ondomless anal intercourse (CAI) with ~2 men in the last year, recruited from gay soc:iosexual media.
Results One-third (34.5%, 1321386) of the participants were aware of PrEP but over half (58.5%, 226/356) reported that they would be willing to use PrEP if it were available to them. Only men who regularly tested for HIV every 6 months (adjusted OR 2.89, 95% Cl 1.54 to 5.42) vvere more likely to be aware of PrEP. PrEP acceptability was only associated with reporting ~5 CAI partners (OR 2.04, 95% Cl 1.2 to 3.46) in the last year.
Conclusions Low levels of PrEP awareness were reported aaoss these Celtic nations. Only one-third of high-risk. MSM had heard of PrEP but over one-half would be willing to take a daily pill to prevent HIV infection. Sociodemographic: factors. commercial gay scene proximity and social network use were unrelated to considering PrEP use. However, those reporting most CAI partners were more likely to consider PrEP use.