Gay Men's Report of Regret of HIV Disclosure to Family, Friends, and Sex Partners

J. Serovich, T. Mason, D. Bautista, P. Toviessi

The purpose of this study was to examine whether HIV-positive MSM experience regret as a consequence of disclosing their HIV serostatus. Participants for this study were 76 HIV-positive MSM involved in a longitudinal study of HIV disclosure (N = 139). Men with at least one network member that was aware of his HIV infection were included in the analyses.Results revealed that overall, HIV-positive men do not regret family or friends knowing about their serostatus (63%). The observed proportion of regret events was practically negligible (4.2%). Compared with friends, the odds of experiencing regret were greater in the immediate family, with coworkers, and casual sex partners but was not significantly different in the extended family or committed sex partners. Despite disclosure being regarded as an anxiety provoking activity and negative reactions are typically anticipated, HIV disclosure appears to elicit very little regret to a wide variety of social network members. Furthermore, there were no differences in the occurrence of regret whether the HIV-positive person disclosed personally or if someone else disclosed for them. In both instances regret was remarkably low.