Men in Papua New Guinea accurately report their circumcision status

Jayathunge, Parana Hewage Mangalasiri, McBride, William John Hannan, MacLaren, David, and Browne, Kelwyn (2015) Men in Papua New Guinea accurately report their circumcision status. PLoS ONE, 10 (4). e0123429. pp. 1-9.

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Abstract

Background

Male circumcision (MC) is a well-established component of HIV prevention in countries with high HIV prevalence and heterosexually driven epidemics. Delivery and monitoring of MC programs are reliant on good quality MC data. Such data are often generated through self-reported MC status surveys. This study examined self-reported MC status in comparison with genital photographs from men in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Methods

This retrospective non-interventional study collated self-reported MC status data from the 'acceptability and feasibility of MC' study at 4 sites in PNG during 2010–2011. Participants reported their MC status based on an 8-category photographic classification covering the range of foreskin cutting practices in PNG. Genital photographs of 222 participants from this study were independently classified by 2 investigators. The 8-category photographic classification was simplified into a 3 category classification of 'no cut', 'straight cut' and 'round cut' before comparing for agreement between self-reporting and investigator assessment using Cohen's Kappa measure.

Results

Using the 3-category classification, there was 90.6% (201/222) agreement between self-assessment and investigator classification (κ value 0.805). Of the discordant 9.4% (21/222), 3.6% (8/222) self-classified as having a cut foreskin (5 straight cut; 3 round cut) while investigators classified as having no cut; 4.1% (9/222) self-classified as having no cut while investigators classified them as having had a cut (6 straight cut; 3 round cut) and 1.8% (4/222) self-classified as having a round cut while investigators classified as having a straight cut. Given the great variety of foreskin cutting practices and appearances, feasible explanations are suggested for two-thirds (13/21) of these discordant results.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates a high level of agreement between self-reporting and investigator assessment of MC status in PNG and suggests self-reporting of MC status to be highly reliable among men in PNG.

Item ID: 39284
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Additional Information:

© 2015 Jayathunge et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Date Deposited: 01 Sep 2015 23:40
FoR Codes: 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111715 Pacific Peoples Health @ 50%
11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified @ 50%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920499 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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