Loyalty of sex and condom use in general population, Taiwan

Background: Population patterns of sexual behavior and condom use are important in sexually transmitted diseases, HIV transmission, and other sexual health outcomes. Our 2010 result of non-anonymous HIV screening, Taiwan, indicates that individuals seeking non-anonymous HIV screening were not members of high-risk groups for HIV or just a general population. Aims: To survey the sexual behavior and condom use in general Taiwan population. Methods: All individuals who underwent non-anonymous HIV screening in Taoyuan were asked to fill out the questionnaire. Results: 2168 individuals (92.6%) used for the analysis. The mean age was 31+9.8 years with a range between 18 and 89 and female number (55.3%) was higher than male number (44.7%). The homosexual proportion was low (1.2% for male and 1.6% for female). Among individuals having sex during last half year (n=1815), the number of sexual partners was significantly higher in male (1.2+0.5, range: 1-13) than that in female (1.0+0.2, range: 1-4) (p<.0001). The type of sexual partners (fixed, casual, missing) was significantly different between male (55.9%, 20.6%, 23.5%, respectively) and female (58.6%, 10.6%, 30.7%, respectively) (p<.0001). For individuals with casual sex partners, proportion of always using condom during sex with casual sexual partners (44.8%) was higher than that with fixed sexual partners (32.2%) (p<.0001). Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first result reporting sexual loyalty among general population and the proportion of always using condom with different type of sexual partners in Taiwan.